Don Surber: Curse you, Sarah Palin, for killing the death panels

Don Surber at the Charleston Daily Mail finds some fallout still in the air from Gov. Palin's warning about death panel back in 2009. He recalls how her remark cause heads in the liberal media to explode, including some at the sham site Politifact, which disingenuously branded it Lie Of The Year:

Calling it a lie was problematic since Obamacare had yet to pass and no one would know what was in the bill until the president signed it into law in March 2010. Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi even said we have to pass the bill in order to see what is in it. Yet 8 months before its passage, the Mensas on the left knew what was in it.

But what was wrong with Sarah Palin’s statement was not that it was false but that it was true, and the truth is poison to liberals.

[...]

I want to thank Eric Kleefield who in his eagerness to demonize Sarah Palin helped bring the planned death panels to the public’s attention.

So there are death panels and they are designed to kill people in order to save money because Obamacare — like the NHS — is about saving money, not lives. Socialists want to making life optional. This is why they support abortion on demand and why they death panels.

Ezra Klein is not the first to complain that we spend “so much” on grandma before she dies. I heard the same arguments 20 years ago when liberals were preparing us for Hillarycare. The argument is simple: We spend too much on medical care knowing we are going to die eventually anyway.

Sarah Palin instead killed the death panels. Well played

[fallout]

- JP

Judge: No plea bargain for the Christys

Remember Sean Christy, the Pennsylvania lad who had a restraining order slapped on him for stalking Sarah Palin? Christy and his father, who now stand accused of harassing Sarah Palin's Alaska lawyers by phone, are not going to be able to get a plea deal, a federal court judge ruled Wednesday:

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess rejected a plea deal for Shawn Christy, 20, and his father, Craig Christy, 48, and instead ordered the men to stand trial in early January. The plea agreement would have let the two avoid prison time and six-figure fines.

Burgess said the plea agreements prosecutors had reached with the Christys were not acceptable to him. The judge cited what he described as a disturbing pattern of threats.

"They seem undeterred in their conduct," Burgess said.

The Christys were arrested in Pennsylvania in August and are in custody in Anchorage. Prosecutors said the men were upset about state restraining orders issued on behalf of the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, along with Palin family members and friends.

[More]

Thankfully, the state restraining orders against the Christys have been extended another six months. These creeps are two seriously messed up walking time bombs.

- JP

Rewind: Jealousy

Let's take a stroll down Memory Lane and watch John Thune act like a 13-year old girl:


h/t: Timothy Donovan

- JP

Sarah: Where does one go to get back their reputation?

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Sarah Palin appeared on Greta's show Tuesday night, but she did not play any favorites, although Van Susteren and Fox News had teased all day that she would:


h/t: SarahNET

- JP

Welcome to the party, pal.

Even if you don't support the man, you should defend him.

*
While Herman Cain suffers the slings and arrows of an October surprise that was sprung on the last day day it could still be called an October surprise (Boo! Happy Halloween), the ensuing passion play on the right should not come as any surprise to conservatives, especially the Paliniste.

Cain's supporters have circled the wagons around their candidate in a tighter radius, and every bit of criticism seems to draw their blood. His conservatives critics don't believe the charges against Cain for a second, but some are expressing their disappointment in the manner the candidate and his team have dealt with the situation. And that, in turn, provokes even more outrage from the Georgia businessman's true believers.

For long-time Palin supporters, it's like we've seen this movie before, but the plot seems to have some new twists that we don't recognize from our first viewing. Cain supporters are getting something of a hint of what Palin supporters have been through. They just need to multiply the past 24 hours by three years to know how we feel.

Sarah Palin was scooped up out of the wilds of Alaska and set down upon the stage of national politics. The political limelight can be temporarily, at least, blinding to the eyes of such a candidate, even though The Alaskan had served two full terms on a city council, two as a mayor and a partial term as a governor. She had to campaign for each of those terms, plus she campaigned another time for lieutenant governor but did not win that election. Serving at the local and state tiers of government may prepare a candidate to govern at the national level, but nothing can fully prepare a candidate for campaigning nationally.

Though Mr. Cain was a senior economic advisor to the Dole/Kemp presidential campaign in 1996, briefly ran for president in 2000 and for the U.S. Senate in Georgia in 2004, he's never been in a spotlight so blinding as the one in which he now finds himself. Such an intensely focused beam exposes every loose thread, no matter how small it may be. Cain had already learned that even the most innocent of jokes told will be taken, sharpened like a knife, and then used as a weapon against him. Sarah Palin could have told him all about what one flippant answer to Katie Couric did to her standing as a candidate, and she was only running for vice president at the time. Never mind that the opposing party's vice presidential candidate, Joe Biden, was a veritable treasure trove of flippant remarks. That doesn't matter, because the way conservatives are treated by the media and the moderates in their own party isn't fair.

That's the point. You've got to expect the kind of stuff that we've seen yesterday and today when you're a conservative, and you're running for national office. That the Cain campaign didn't have its messaging worked out beforehand is painfully obvious. Anyone who tries to point this out to Mr. Cain's supporters is taking angry fire right now. Most, though not all, Palin supporters can understand this. When your candidate is under such heavy attack, you don't want to hear any further criticism, no matter how constructive may have been the intent.

Somewhere in the middle conservative ground between those who don't want to hear a discouraging word about Mr. Cain and those who believe he's fair game for attacks made by such as Politico, are those like Karol Markowicz at It's a Free Blog:

I worked on Herman Cain's U.S. Senate primary campaign in 2004 in Georgia and he remains my all-time favorite candidate. His loss in that race was the most heartbreaking political defeat of my career. I still think he's amazing, smart, genuine, and capable, I just don't think he's ready to be president. I would like to see him bone up his foreign policy credentials. I don't like his 999 plan because I don't trust the government to keep the federal income tax at the agreed-upon 9%. Most of all, I don't think someone who has never held elected office can beat Obama and that is priority #1 this election.

I note all this now to be clear that my defense of Herman Cain, against charges of sexual harassment while he was at the National Restaurant Association, is not political in nature.

[...]

Cain is the kind of guy who is exactly the same behind the scenes as he is when he's "on". He's honest and direct. There's no nonsense with him. His charm is not a flirtatious charm. He is not lecherous. He is the same towards men as he is towards women. While he has a dazzling personality, he doesn't use it to inflate his own ego. He knows his strengths, of course, but he doesn't seem like the kind of person to try to get away with things. He doesn't do things because he can. Many of his ex-staff from his U.S. Senate campaign have gone on the record saying this story does not at all represent the Herman we know.

We agree, Karol and I, even though we differ in our choices of which non-Cain presidential candidate we support. We can have that argument later. Right now all of us on the conservative side who don't back Herman Cain in his quest to be president can still defend him against the obviously false and politically-motivated charges that were leveled against him. That doesn't mean we have to support him for president, nor does it mean we cannot voice our opposition to his policy positions which we disagree with. It only means we can defend him when he is smeared. Not only can we defend him, but we should defend him. And if we want any conservative candidate to be able to fight on some semblance of a level field of political combat henceforth, we must defend Herman Cain now.

- JP

Sarah Palin to keynote Florida GOP's annual Victory Dinner

Thursday, November 3
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Gov. Palin will be the keynote speaker for The RPOF's biggest fundraising event of the year in Orange County next month. TIME's Mark Halperin quotes from the press release at The Page:

The Republican Party of Florida is pleased to announce that on Thursday, November 3rd, Governor Sarah Palin will join Republicans for the RPOF's most important fundraising event of the year. The 2011 RPOF Victory Dinner will be held at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort in Orlando. The annual dinner will bring key Republican activists and donors together from around the state.

"This gala dinner comes just a year before one of the most important elections in Florida and the nation's history," said RPOF Chairman Lenny Curry. "Having a Republican leader of Governor Palin's stature and importance is yet again proof of the crucial role Florida will play as the year unfolds. We are so grateful that Governor Palin has accepted our invitation."

Florida Governor Rick Scott added, "Our next Republican nominee for President will need to win Florida in 2012, and the Republican Party of Florida will be critical to that mission. Governor Palin's participation in our Victory Dinner next month will help to ensure that we have the resources necessary to take back the White House."

According to the Miami Herald, a limited number of general admission tickets are priced at $150.

h/t: Brendan Farrington, via Ian Lazaran

- JP

Quote of the Day (September 27 2011)

‘Discovery Is a Bitch,’ as They Say…
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Stacy McCain, at The Real McCain:

“If I were a Random House executive, I’d be very worried right now.”

- JP

Bristol Palin: Just to clear things up

As posted by Bristol on Facebook
*

Just To Clear Things Up

As a lot of you know, I had an encounter in West Hollywood the other day with an unhinged guy who was yelling hateful things at me about my Mom. The press has only shown a part of the encounter, so many reporters have totally missed the point of my comments. Most people may have walked away rather than go up to some guy raging like that and try to find out what his problem is. But that’s not how I’m wired. I usually do walk away, but I'm very tired of hateful people lying about my Mom, my family, and myself. So, this time I tried to get to the bottom of it.

I asked the guy if the reason he was so angry at my Mom was because he was gay. I was NOT baiting him or mocking him or in any way being derogatory of gays. It was just the opposite! I know that some members of the gay community have completely false notions about my Mom. I wanted to clear this up with this guy, but he was so far gone in his crazy hatred that rational conversation was impossible.

I think so much of the hatred directed at my Mom is based on lies and misconceptions about her and our family. It’s gotten so out of control that a 40-something guy in West Hollywood started shrieking obscenities at the top of his lungs and wishing death on my Mom, just at the thought of her. She hasn't done anything to warrant his hatred, and I wanted to address that.

As I said to that hate-filled guy in West Hollywood: Show me one thing my Mom has done that is so “evil” as to warrant the hatred and death wishes people heap on her and her kids.

The crazy guy had no answer because there is no answer. You can disagree with her politics without vilifying her or lying about us.

Isn’t it time for this crazy hatred to stop? That’s what I was trying to say to that guy.

- Bristol

h/t: Ron Devito

- JP

Quote of the Day (September 26 2011)

Gov Sarah Palin putting heat on Random House and Joe McGinnis
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Greta Van Susteren, at GretaWire:

“Governor Sarah Palin may have the ‘smoking gun’ email!”

- JP

Gov. Palin's Attorneys Put Crown/Random House on Notice

"...you and Mr. McGinniss have defamed the Palins.”
*
From Jonathan Karl at ABC News blog The Note:

Sarah Palin’s family attorney John Tiemessen has written a letter to Maya Mavjee, the publisher of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, that Palin may sue her, the company, and the book’s author Joe McGinniss “for knowingly publishing false statements” in his book released last week, “The Rogue,” ABC News has learned.

The book was widely panned by critics for using unnamed sources to criticize Palin and her family. Tiemessen cites an email they have access to in which McGinniss writes that attorneys from Crown Publishing told him “nothing I can cite other than my own reporting rises above the level of tawdry gossip. The proof is always just around the corner, but that is a corner nobody has been able to turn” and that McGinniss “ran out of time” to sufficiently source the book.

A source close to the Palins tells ABC News that the “Palins are fighting back and demanding answers from Random House.”

The email Tiemessen cites in his letter to Mavjee came to light last week when conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted an email between McGinniss and liberal Alaskan blogger, Jesse Griffin. In the email posted on Breitbart’s site without explanation for how they got access to it, McGinniss writes, “Legal review of my manuscript is underway and here’s my problem: no one has ever offered documentation of any of the lurid stories about the Palins.”

Courtesy of Andrew Breitbart's Big Government, here are excerpts from the letter:

Enclosed is an e-mail by your author Joe McGinniss. In this e-mail, Mr. McGinniss admits that your own lawyers instructed him that “nothing I can cite other than my own reporting rises above the level of tawdry gossip.”….Indeed, Mr. McGinniss admits that the allegations are false unless he can find someone or something to show they are true. We know from the final book that he was unable to do so.

It is malicious for your company to publish a book wherein it, and the author, admit that they were fully aware the statements in the book were false, intended to be false, and were intended to harm…

Accordingly, since both your company, and the author, clearly knew the statements were false, admitted they had no basis in fact or reality, but decided to publish in order to harm Governor Palin’s family, you and Mr. McGinniss have defamed the Palins. This letter shall serve as written notice under AS.09.30.070 (b) that a claim may be brought against you, your company and Mr. McGinniss for knowingly publishing false statements.

In the interim, please take note of the following: It is unlawful to delete emails or destroy records upon being notified of the need of business records for litigation purposes. In addition, courts may impose civil sanctions against a defendant that destroys emails and other documentation. Please immediately provide notice to your employees to save and back up all records pertaining to the Palins and the book “The Rogue."

Landmark Legal Foundation president Mark Levin comments that the McGinness email to Jesse Griffin is essentially a waiver of attorney privilege:


Stacy McCain observes that the Tiemessen letter is no idle "threat." It's a “demand letter.”

ABC News has a copy of the full letter here.

- JP

Quote of the Day (September 25 2011)

The Joe McGinniss Method
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Stacy McCain, at The Other McCain:

“Notice that Glenn Rice has said nothing — not one word — about McGinniss’s book since its publication. Does that not strike you as curious?”

- JP

History repeats itself as latest anti-Palin books bomb

'The Rogue' was supposed to have found success where the Dunn and Bailey efforts met failure
*
The left's latest one-two literary punch against Sarah Palin is proving to be an ineffective combination that misses its mark. Disgraced author Joe McGinness' The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin and Caribou Country clown Levi Johnston's Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin's Crosshairs were both released on Tuesday, but the book-buying public apparently couldn't care less. At the time of this writing, McGinness' hardcover hit job is sales-ranked #74 by Amazon and #208 at Barnes & Noble. Johnston's joke of a book fares even worse, at #888 in sales at Amazon and #20,049 at Barnes & Noble.

It's not like both books and their respective authors suffered any from lack of promotion by their publishers and left wing advocate bloggers. Random House/Crown conducted a major roll out campaign for The Rogue, lining up appearances for McGinnis to promote his book on NBC's "Today Show" and ABC's "The View," among other small screen venues. Cartoonist Garry Trudeau even signed on to a rather unique agreement to excerpt McGinness' drive-by character assassination of Sarah Palin in his "Doonesbury" strip. And The Rogue also got featured reviews by liberal newspaper mainstays The New York Times, Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Granted, the reviews were much harsher than Random House had expected, but as they say in the PR world, any publicity is good publicity. And speaking of publicity, McGinness and his 300-plus pages of Palin smears is currently in the vortex of a major controversy of firestorm magnitude, yet sales still remain tepid at best.

The massive hype surrounding McGinness has overshadowed the promotional effort for Johnston's Deer in the Headlights, but both Palin character assassins benefited from friendly television venues where they hawked their books, and nutroots left blogs have hyped both volumes as the knockout punches that would surely spell the political end of the first woman to govern Alaska and campaign as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate once and for all. Yet despite all of this, both books have failed. What went wrong?

The left is already deep into the spin cycle, attempting to explain away the poor performance of the McGinness and Johnston books as a waning of the public's interest in all things Palin. But the Wasilla Warrior's name in the headlines still draws viewers to their television screens, sells magazines and guarantees web page traffic, so that excuse doesn't hold water. We submit that the public has not lost interest in Sarah Palin, but it recognizes a smear job when it sees one. The left, which can always be counted on not to learn a thing from history, has been to this well so many times that John and Jane Q. Public are no longer buying the lies.

A similar one-two combination was tried against Sarah Palin in the spring, and it was an utter failure then, as Steve Flesher wrote May 29 at American Thinker:

Palin-flamethrower, Geoffrey Dunn of the Huffington Post released The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power May 10th and Frank Bailey, former Aide to Palin, teamed up with Palin critic Jeanne Devon to release Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years on May 24th. Ardent opponents of Sarah Palin have been highly-anticipating these books which promised to tear down Palin's public image for the long-term.

Interestingly, Geoffrey Dunn's book has not even hit Amazon's top-100 list since its release; and after a week of media coverage including appearances on NBC, ABC's The View, Fox News, CNN, and many more, Frank Bailey's "memoir" disappointingly debuted at #40 and has already fallen to #75.

While reasonable voters notice that perhaps Americans are beginning to tire of the anti-Palin volume, others are sure to argue that Americans simply don't care about her at all, even though the latest headlines which seem to be tracking her every move impeccably could be enough to put that idea to rest.

One thing is sure for Palin as she moves toward making her 2012 decision. She enjoys the luxury of knowing she has been thoroughly vetted and scrutinized for the last two years. While anti-Palin readers have lined their ammunition up one year before a presidential campaign, her supporters are left wondering who is left in Alaska to interview. Because on the basis of Geoffrey Dunn's and Frank Bailey's accompanying Palin-bombs, what they've come up with so far doesn't seem to be effectively extinguishing the grassroots energy Sarah Palin has uniquely created and maintained.

The Rogue was supposed to have found success where the Dunn and Bailey efforts met failure, but McGinness made a fatal mistake. The author bet his book on hollow promises from an Alaskan blogger who fed McGinness a long list of juicy allegations, but few real people were willing to put their names behind the rumors. McGinness claims that the reason for the lack of any compelling evidence in his book is that people were fearful for their very lives. Were this the case then why are Jesse Griffin and the members of his gang of Palin-hating bloggers still alive and well in Alaska? No, the reason that McGinness' book is such a joke is that there's literally no there there. The rumors are anonymous and unsubstantiated because there's no truth to them, much less a single shred of compelling evidence to support them. Even liberal reviewers, who would otherwise be favorably disposed toward McGinness in his attempt to take down Clan Palin, recognize a lack of substance when they read it. Like the Dunn and Bailey assaults on Sarah Palin in May, the attempted September slayings of the Mama Grizzly by McGinness and Johnston are doomed to be abject failures.

- JP

Chuck Heath, Jr: 'The McGinniss book is filled with one lie after another'

"Neither McGinniss nor Crown/Random House reached out to me" for verification or comment
*
Chuck Heath, Jr., Gov. Palin's brother, released a statement on the McGinness book of lies to Andrew Breitbart's Big Government and Big Journalism:

"The McGinniss book is filled with one lie after another. The final straw for me was when I learned that he used me as a source for his lies about my sister and brother-in-law’s marriage. He included in his book comments falsely attributed to me by one of his unnamed sources. Neither McGinniss nor Crown/Random House reached out to me to verify, or even comment on, this alleged hearsay from an unnamed source. They just ran with it, and as a consequence, the tabloids picked it up and used it to fuel false rumors about my sister getting a divorce. All of this is a total lie, and I’m sick of seeing my sister, her family, and our extended family being trashed by smear-merchants like Joe McGinniss and his publisher."

Mark Levin: It would appear that McGinness is a fiction writer

"And a bad one at that -- a hack."
*


h/t: Timothy Donovan

- JP

Shawn & Craig Christy plead not guilty in Palin harassment case

"They repeatedly say they are coming to Alaska."
*
The Pennsylvania father and son who have been threaten Sarah Palin and her family entered not guilty pleas Wednesday to federal charges of harassing the former Alaska governor's attorneys by telephone. Craig Christy, age 47, and his 19-year-old son Shawn entered their pleas before a magistrate judge in U.S. District Court in Anchorage:

The Christys, of McAdoo, Pa., face felony charges of placing harassing interstate telephone calls to the former Alaska governor's attorneys and employees of the law firm's offices in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Palin, a potential Republican presidential candidate and the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, has been granted state restraining orders against the men.

The Christys have been accused of making hundreds of phone calls to the offices of Palin's attorney, John Tiemessen. Some of the calls involved threats against Palin and others, according to an indictment by a federal grand jury in Alaska.

Neither Tiemessen nor Palin attended the hearing.

"The tone of the messages was putting the staff on edge because they have been threatened by the Christys," the indictment says. "They repeatedly say they are coming to Alaska. Tiemessen's family also has been threatened and harassed telephonically."

The indictment did not elaborate on the nature of threats against Palin. The document says the calls included obscenity-laden phone messages, including a death threat to Tiemessen from Craig Christy. In another message, Shawn Christy said he was going to Alaska and would rape one of the attorneys, according to the indictment.

The Christys were arrested last month following the indictment. They have since been held without bail.

A jury trial for both men, who were assigned court-appointed attorneys, has been set for Nov. 21, and a hearing to determine whether they will be granted bail will be held Monday. Each of the Christy men faces a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

- JP

Breitbart promises more McGinness bombshells

"People are reaching out to us" with testimony which debunks McGinness book"
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In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Andrew Breitbart reveals that he's not through disassembling the living lie that is Joe McGinness, not by a long shot:


h/t: PalinUndefeated

See Also: McGinniss Confirms, Griffin Fumes, ‘Hooker’ Responds

- JP

Rush: 'Now this looks like the makings of a very lucrative lawsuit'

"These people are telling us who they are afraid of, and they'll stoop to anything..."
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h/t: Breitbart.tv

- JP

More Fallout From Bretbart's McGinness Bombshell (Updated)

“No one has ever provided factual evidence”
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There's more fallout from Andrew Breitbart's devastating bomb run on Joe McGinness and his book of lies. In a follow up posting at Big Journalism, Breitbart presents six of the more scurrilous of McGinness' unsubstantiated allegations in detail, "and how McGinniss used most of them in The Rogue, even though he admitted in his email that he could not prove them."

a) Todd had sex with a hooker, or with anyone else outside his marriage.

McGinniss dropped the “hooker” accusation–probably because he was afraid, as his email suggests, that the sole source “may be mentally unstable” and that even the National Enquirer appeared to be ready “to back off this story.”

Yet McGinniss did publish allegations in The Rogue that Todd flirted with other women (p. 115) and had sex outside his marriage (p. 169), based solely on sources identified as “an attractive white woman” and “a friend of his,” respectively. Both sources are identified in the book as having spoken to McGinniss in 2010–before the January 2011 email in which he admitted he had no factual evidence beyond “tawdry gossip.”

b) Sarah had an affair with Brad Hanson, or anyone else.

McGinniss presents no named source for this accusation in The Rogue other than an article in the National Enquirer in October 2008. He refers to “a friend of Todd’s,” who tells McGinniss in 2010 that the affair–which both Palin and Hanson deny–was “known” (p. 64). He also cites third-party rumors, cited in turn (apparently in 2010) by former Wasilla mayor John Stein, who states that “we were hearing” about an affair during the mayoral campaign in which he was ousted by Sarah Palin (p. 64). Similarly, he cites third-party rumors from a woman named Colleen Cottle, whom he speaks to upon arriving in Wasilla in 2010. McGinniss does not quote Cottle directly, but says that she fills him in on local gossip, and attributes a remark about the affair to her (p. 6). All of these flimsy sources pre-date McGinniss’s email in January 2011 in which he admits that: “[N]o one has ever provided factual evidence” for the claims he lists.

c) Track was a druggie who enlisted in the army to avoid a jail term. Or that he vandalized Wasilla school buses.

McGinniss’s basis for accusations of drug use by Track Palin is the National Enquirer, which in turn had quoted an unnamed “source” in 2008. He adds that “reports of Track’s drug use persisted even into the summer of 2010” but does not specify what those reports are, or from whom (p. 114). His primary source for the accusation of vandalism in 2005 is local gossip: “word spread immediately in Wasilla,” McGinniss says, though he also claims that an unnamed radio station and an unnamed television station in Anchorage reported the accusation (p. 113). In the end, McGinniss hedges his bets: “Whether or not Track was involved in the school bus vandalism…” (p. 113).

McGinniss does not include the accusation that Track “enlisted in the army to avoid a jail term” in The Rogue. However, he does quote an unnamed “friend” of Track’s who said that Track enlisted to avoid getting into “trouble” such as “[t]he school bus thing, theft issues, multiple stuff” (p. 113). McGinniss does not clarify whether the “friend” is speaking from personal knowledge, or merely repeating third-hand rumors, perhaps provided by McGinniss himself as a prompt. For good measure, McGinniss claims–again, without any evidence–that Sarah Palin engineered Track’s enlistment and his deployment to Iraq for political gain, and quotes an unnamed state trooper who claims Track showed no signs of patriotism on the way to the enlistment office (p. 114).

All of the “evidence” cited by McGinniss to substantiate his claims about Track Palin appears to pre-date his January 2011 email in which he states that Random House lawyers have told him that he has no evidence, and that “nobody” has provided proof.

d) Willow was involved in the vandalism of the empty house in Meadow Lakes. Or that Sarah rushed back from Hawaii to put the lid on that.

McGinniss’s only source is the National Enquirer, which made these claims in 2010. He also claims “[m]any in Wasilla” believe the story (p. 111). He also cites gossip related by Colleen Cottle in 2010–again, without quoting her directly (p. 6). None of this “evidence” was obtained after McGinniss admitted, in his email, that he could not prove the claim.

e) Trig is not Sarah’s natural born child.

McGinniss provides no new evidence for this debunked claim, quoting “questions” being asked on “blogs” and the like (p. 316). McGinniss also cites “many Wasillans” who allegedly say that “even if she had not faked the entire story of her pregnancy and Trig’s birth, it was something she was eminently capable of doing” (p. 285). In other words, he supports a lie, which he tacitly admits he cannot prove, by attacking Palin’s character.

f) Bristol was promiscuous as a high schooler and drank and used drugs, or became pregnant again after Tripp’s birth.

McGinniss’s source is again local gossip in the summer of 2010: “Rumors immediately run rampant,” he says (p. 204). Once again, he also cites gossip allegedly related by (but not directly quoted from) Colleen Cottle in 2010. He mentions a July 2010 interview in The Daily Beast with Bristol’s alleged new boyfriend at the time, Ben Barber, which does not discuss promiscuity or drugs, and actually contradicts the claim that Bristol became pregnant again. None of these “tawdry” rumors, which McGinniss admits in his January 2011 email have no factual basis, is supported by subsequent evidence.

[More]

Update: McGinniss Confirms, Griffin Fumes, ‘Hooker’ Responds

- JP

Andrew Breitbart Drops a Smart Bomb on Joe McGuiness

McGinniss email reveals his manuscript could not prove its most salacious allegations
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Andrew Breitbart dropped a smart bomb Friday morning which threatens to utterly destroy Joe McGinniss and his anti-Palin book The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin. But Breitbart's precision-guided weapon may have also caused some collateral damage to the reputation of McGinness' publisher, Random House. Also caught up in the explosion is disgraced anti-Palin blogger Jesse Griffin.

As Breitbart points out, even the establishment media, which is not kindly disposed toward Gov. Palin, has overwhelmingly greeted the McGinness book with scathing reviews and condemnation. McGinniss aapears to have knowingly submitted a book to his publisher that was filled with little more than unproven “tawdry gossip” and rumors that lacked “factual evidence, says Breitbart, and now faces "the fight of his literary life."

In the email below, sent in January of 2011, McGinniss reveals that his manuscript, then under legal review at Crown/Random House, could not prove its most headline-grabbing allegations. And yet, many of these “salacious stories” that lacked “proof” (in McGinniss’s own words) ended up in the book, and on televisions everywhere during the author’s current media tour … without proper sourcing, and without any apparent new evidence to support them.

McGinniss’s panicked state is evidenced by the identity of the recipient to whom he sent his email of distress. Jesse Griffin was the author of an obscure, low-rent, and now-defunct anti-Palin blog that obsessed over Trig Palin’s maternity–claiming, without any evidence, that Sarah Palin was not Trig’s mother.

Was Random House aware that its prized author was making a desperate overtime bid to save face? And if so, why did it allow him to come forth with most of those tawdry accusations without proof or proper sourcing?

This would not be the first time McGinniss has found himself in trouble over accusations of unethical journalism. In 1987, McGinniss agreed to pay $325,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the convicted murderer who was the subject of McGinniss’s book Fatal Vision. He has also admitted to having surreptitiously distributed a competitor’s manuscript about Palin that was handed to him by his own publisher. The leak allegedly damaged the commercial viability of that book.

In 2003, Random House released a larger-than-life, massive bestseller by James Frey entitled A Million Little Pieces. Later, it was revealed that the book was a fantastical literary hoax that made its way past some of the highest-paid and most respected editors and lawyers in the literary world. Doubleday/Random House felt compelled to offer full refunds to those who had bought the book.

Has history repeated itself?

Mr. McGinniss has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

—–

From: Joe McGinniss
To: Jesse Griffin
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 6:15 PM
Subject: I have to ask you for help

Jesse–

Legal review of my manuscript is underway and here’s my problem: no one has ever offered documentation of any of the lurid stories about the Palins. Shailey Tripp is the latest example.

APD and Sarah have denied that Todd had any involvement with her. To my knowledge, no one has provided any evidence that he did. TheEnquirer cites AlaskaWTF, which in turn cites the Enquirer: what good is that? I’m also told that the Enquirer is preparing to back off this story and save face by denouncing Ms. Tripp as an unreliable source who promised documentation she couldn’t provide.

She may be mentally unstable and prone to fabrication, delusion, or both. Her joint may be called Blue Hands Massage (brrrrr!), but she’s no Monica Lewinsky with a blue dress with a semen stain, that’s for sure.

Do you believe that Todd paid her for sex? If so, why do you believe that, other than that you wish it were true?

A lurid, sensational, defamatory story about Todd, based only on the account of a woman charged with prostitution, who is no doubt desperate for money, and who sold her story to the Enquirer, is a gift from heaven for Sarah.

Jesse, you can ridicule Sarah for calling in to the execrable Bob & Mark, but the fact is that as far as this story goes, there’s no there there. And rumors about what might come in weeks ahead are not facts. In fact, they’re garbage.

I’ve neither seen nor heard anything that indicates that Ms. Tripp’s story has any basis in fact. None of the endless crap Patrick posted about her before getting the boot from palingates.com offers any substantiation.

And even you write frequently that you know things you can’t yet post, but that soon “all will be revealed.” This has been going on since I first became aware of your blog, but as far as I know you haven’t substantiated a single claim or provided verification for a single rumor that you’ve posted about Sarah’s personal life, or the personal lives of any Palin family members. Thus, she gets to denounce what she calls “lies.”

Neither from you, the Enquirer, AlaskaWTF, palingates.com or anyone else, have I seen a credible, identified source backing any of the salacious stories about the Palin family.

Thus–as Random House lawyers are already pointing out to me–nothing I can cite other than my own reporting rises above the level of tawdry gossip. The proof is always just around the corner, but that’s a corner nobody has been able to turn. Maybe Jeff Dunn has, in which case I’ll be the first to congratulate him. But frankly, at this point, I’m tired of it, and I’ve run out of time.

No one has ever provided factual evidence that:

a) Todd had sex with a hooker, or with anyone else outside his marriage.

b) Sarah had an affair with Brad Hanson, or anyone else.

c) Track was a druggie who enlisted in the army to avoid a jail term. Or that he vandalized Wasilla school buses.

d) Willow was involved in the vandalism of the empty house in Meadow Lakes. Or that Sarah rushed back from Hawaii to put the lid on that.

e) Trig is not Sarah’s natural born child.

f) Bristol was promiscuous as a high schooler and drank and used drugs, or became pregnant again after Tripp’s birth.

Jesse, you were going on and on about Bristol being pregnant while doing Dancing With The Stars. And, if I recall correctly, at the time of her brief glossy-magazine-payday “reunion” with Levi, you surmised that she was pregnant by Ben Barber, or at least by someone who wasn’t Levi. You’ve recently suggested she’s had an abortion, publishing photographs that show her chubby then and thin now. But doesn’t that seem a little “thin” to you, based on nothing besides magazine pictures?

So much has bubbled at the salacious rumor stage for more than two years, but no one has been able to take even one story further.

Jesse, if you can put me in touch with people who are willing and able to substantiate any of the above, now is the time to do so. Otherwise, I hope you won’t complain that there are no startling new revelations in my book. My publisher and I think it’s damning enough without airing the family’s dirty laundry, but because Sarah’s hypocrisy about her family is one of the things that galls me most, I’d like to be able to publish facts in regard to a) through f) above, but I emphasize facts.

Not malicious speculation or third-hand rumors relayed by those who hold a grudge.

For any or all of those who’ve told you they’ll speak out, but not yet, now is the time. My book represents the last best chance to put the truth about Sarah in front of the American people in a documented, verifiable way. But I need facts that I can rely on. I didn’t live this long and work this hard over so many decades to wind up as AlaskaWTF between hard covers.

as always, and looking forward to seeing you in spring or summer,

Joe

[More]

- JP

Day By Day (September 22, 2011)

Burn Notice
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Good morning! It's a wonderful life if we just take it Day By Day:


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- JP