The Rogue
Doing My Part
July 6, 2011
Palin supporters (hello? are there any left?) are being urged to pack the movie theaters on July 15 for the premiere of “The Undefeated.”
I guess the theory is if Sarah sees there are still a few thousand people around the country willing to sit through a two-hour glorification of herself, she might just decide run for president after all.
Well, I might be in attendance myself at the July 15 showing in Phoenix. Summer weather just wonderful, with temps above 115 and massive dust storms (see photo above showing conditions yesterday.)
I’m thinking of writing a Kindle Single to be called “Sarah Palin’s Arizona,” which could go on sale at amazon.com in late August.
Maybe ten thousand words about the state Sarah is making her new home. I could spend a bit of time in North Scottsdale, swing by Maricopa, and head down to Tucson, where Gabrielle Giffords almost died and where Sarah’s political career, in fact, did.
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | 
Tags: amazon.com, gabrielle giffords, kindle singles, maricopa, north scottsdale, phoenix, the undefeated, tucson | 
66 Comments »
Bachmann Overdrive Leaves Sarah in Dust UPDATE:// UK bookies say Bachmann twice as likely as Palin to win 2012
July 5, 2011
As The New York Times reports, Michele Bachmann electrified a July Fourth crowd in Clear Lake, Iowa yesterday.
The excitement surrounding Mrs. Bachmann rivaled the attention paid to most candidates in recent years, including in 2007 when Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived with her husband in tow…One week after Mrs. Bachmann declared her candidacy in Iowa, where she lived until age 12, her campaign has swept through New Hampshire and South Carolina, drawing bigger crowds than any of her Republican rivals.
A year ago, I’m sure Sarah Palin supporters would have envisioned the exact same scene, but with Sarah as the center of attention.
It was not to be. All Sarah could muster for the holiday was a typically stale, banal tweet:
“Let Freedom Ring! Happy Independence Day… thank God for America, thank God for our troops.”
Sarah may still be asking herself, “To be or not to be?” but the answer matters less with each passing day.
The GOP circus train has moved on, leaving Sarah stranded at the Wasilla depot with nobody even caring any more.
UPDATE: The UK betting agency, William Hill, which is seeking approval to take presidential bets in Las Vegas next year, has posted their current odds on the 2012 race. Why is the chart below a valuable guide to what’s actually likely to happen, as opposed to what partisans hope for? Because William Hill couldn’t care less who wins. As long as they adjust their odds to stay ahead of the curve, they make their profit regardless of the outcome. Thus, their take on 2012 is something hard to find in U.S. media and on blogs: expert and dispassionate.
William Hill odds don’t differ significantly from those recently offered by Ladbrokes, which I posted here, but they are more current.
Take a look:
| Next US President
|
|
|---|---|
|
4/9
Barack Obama
|
6/1
Mitt Romney
|
|
8/1
Tim Pawlenty
|
12/1
Rick Perry
|
|
14/1
Michele Bachmann
|
18/1
Jon Huntsman
|
|
28/1
Sarah Palin
|
40/1
Ron Paul
|
|
40/1
Marco Rubio
|
50/1
Hilary Clinton
|
|
50/1
Joe Biden
|
50/1
Rudy Giuliani
|
|
50/1
Rick Santorum
|
50/1
Herman Cain
|
|
66/1
Newt Gingrich
|
100/1
Jeb Bush
|
|
500/1
Randall Terry
|
|
Bachmann at 14/1 offers only half the reward that a bet on Sarah at 28/1 would return–the surest sign yet that God has grown tired of holding open the door.
Of course, Obama at 4/9 suggests that a bet on any Republican would be putting “trickle-up” economics into action (i.e. your money will trickle up into William Hill’s already bloated coffers.)
p.s. William Hill offering 9/4 on Brazil to win the Copa America (South American championship) currently being played in Argentina. Having watched all first-round matches (Univision/Telefutura have great HD broadcasts) I’m tempted…also tempted by the 10/1 currently offered on Brazil’s Pato to wind up as individual high scorer.
But not at all tempted by 28-1 on Sarah What’s-her-name.
FULL DISCLOSURE: In 1999, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. In the end, the award went to a bedridden “septuagenarian knight” for his social history of English cricket. I congratulated Sir Derek by telephone soon after the presentation. He was utterly charming and I’m glad his final days were brightened by the award.
Anyway, how’s a Yank named Joe gonna beat out a septuagenarian knight for a London book prize?
The William Hill people made the awards ceremony a splendid event, and as second prize I received a £750 credit to the new wagering account they established for me. No need to tell you how long it took me to run through that!
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, michelle bachmann, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue, Wasilla | Tags: 2012 gop candidates, bachman turner overdrive, brazil, circus, copa america, cricket, iowa primary, July 4th, london, new hampshire, pato, sarah palin 2012 campaign, south carolina, telefutura, train station, univision, william hill | 42 Comments »
Meet the new Sarah Palin: Nikki Haley of South Carolina
July 3, 2011
As Sarah’s free-fall into political irrelevance accelerates, Bachmann has already replaced her as the right-wing Republican woman who might matter in 2012. But it’s Nikki Haley (pictured with Sarah above) who threatens to erase all memories of the Wasilla Weirdo.
[By the way, thanks to commenters and others who worry that nobody will care about THE ROGUE when it is published on September 20. Worry not. My publisher, Crown, is not concerned. In fact, the people at Crown are wildly excited about the book’s prospects, and growing more so every day. THE ROGUE contains enough startling new revelations–as well as my first-person account of what it was like to live next to Sarah last summer–to assure the sort of national interest that previous books about Sarah did not achieve. Major national media attention is already guaranteed, although I’m not permitted yet to get specific.]
But think longer term: Bachmann will burn out this year and next because she’s just as dopey and as enslaved to Dominionist Christianty as is Sarah.
Obama should be so lucky as to have Bachmann as his 2012 opponent. (No, he couldn’t possibly be so lucky as to have Sarah to wipe up the floor with next year: if he did, he might win all fifty states.)
No matter who it is, he’ll be reelected. Yes, you heard it here first. No matter how short the odds, bet Obama in 2012.
Current odds from Ladbrokes in the UK:
Barack Obama
1/2
Mitt Romney
5/1
Tim Pawlenty
12/1
Rick Perry
14/1
Jon Huntsman
20/1
Michele Bachmann
20/1
Sarah Palin
33/1
Rudy Giuliani
50/1
Herman Cain
50/1
Ron Paul
66/1
Newt Gingrich
66/1
Rick Santorum
150/1
Gary Johnson
150/1
Thaddeus McCotter
150/1
If you bet $1,000 on Obama to be reelected, you’d receive $1,500 the day after election day, 2012.
That’s a fifty percent return on your money in sixteen months.
I personally, of course, do not endorse wagering in any form.
Nonetheless, you might be interested in Ladbrokes’ take on the GOP nomination:
Mitt Romney
11/8
Tim Pawlenty
4/1
Rick Perry
5/1
Michele Bachmann
7/1
Jon Huntsman
10/1
Sarah Palin
14/1
Rudy Giuliani
25/1
Herman Cain
25/1
Newt Gingrich
33/1
Ron Paul
40/1
Rick Santorum
66/1
Gary Johnson
66/1
Thaddeus McCotter
66/1
Rick Perry, who hasn’t even said he’ll run, is 5/1, while Sarah, slipping fast, is 14/1 for the nomination.
But let’s look beyond the easy money Ladbrokes is putting on the table. Let’s look to 2016, by which time Sarah will be only that bad taste you might burp up if you ate too much pizza last night.
The GOP/Tea Party/hot chick meme will still be out there. There will be no incumbent President.
Beware Nikki Haley of South Carolina. The New York Times has just anointed her as the future of the Tea Party here.
And the Haley piece was written by Kim Severson, formerly of the Anchorage Daily News.
So she knows how this stuff can happen.
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY TO ALL WHO READ THIS BLOG AND COMMENT ON IT, AND ALSO TO ALL OF OUR TROOPS SERVING OUR NATION, BOTH HERE AND ABROAD, AND ESPECIALLY TO THOSE WOMEN AND MEN WHOSE LIVES ARE IN DANGER AS THEY SERVE IN WAR ZONES.
It’s not only Sarah Palin who cares about you.
Will She, Won’t She? WSJ readers don’t know
July 2, 2011
HOW better to get through a slow news three-day weekend than take a poll?
The Wall Street Journal figured why not ask readers if they think Sarah Palin will run for president.
Seems that the first three thousand respondents are almost evenly divided: 52 percent say yes, 48 percent say no.
Anybody who wants to can weigh in here:
Vote early and often. It’s free.
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: sarah palin 2012 campaign, wall street journal | 42 Comments »
Rhinestone Christian
July 1, 2011
Who do we know who is so utterly lacking in class, taste and true respect for the God she claims to worship that she could wear the belt pictured above at a public appearance in Iowa this week?
Hint: it’s neither Michele Bachmann nor Michelle Obama.
Answer can be found here at Gryphen’s Immoral Minority.
Posted in evangelical, Joe McGinniss, michelle bachmann, Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: crassness, crucifix, disrespect for religion, gryphen, immoral minority, iowa, tasteless | 53 Comments »
Sarah Hits Rock-Bottom: in new poll ALASKANS prefer Obama to ex-Governor
June 29, 2011
If I could summarize my 2008-2009-2010 research in Alaska about Sarah, I’d say the most surprising thing I found was that those who know her best like her least.
Perhaps I should amend that now to say that those who know Sarah best dislike her most.
It’s only the outliers, who know little or nothing, who cling to their fantasies about the woman who never was.
Alaska Daily News today reports on a new Hays Research poll that shows that President Obama would defeat (“The Oft-Defeated”) Palin 42-36 in Alaska.
And this poll was commissioned by right-wing Alaska radio talk show host Mike Porcaro. Commenting after seeing the results, Porcaro said, “the surprising result is she has become highly unpopular in her home state.”
Porcaro is a good guy and a reasonable man. But if he considers the result of his own poll “surprising,” it shows he hasn’t had his fingers on the same statewide pulse I detected last summer, and even in the fall of 2009 when I was researching THE ROGUE in Alaska.
In any case, now no one can deny the reality: Alaskans would rather re-elect an African-American Democrat than see their ex-Governor in the White House.
My first alert to the fraudulence of Sarah Palin came in June, 2008, and it came from a conservative, my friend Tom Brennan, the ex-newspaperman and p.r. man and present-day author, about whom I write in Going to Extremes. I was thinking of revisiting Alaska to write about the changes since the mid-1970’s, the period about which I wrote in Extremes.
That’s when I learned that Alaska had its first woman governor. Because she was described as a conservative Republican, I wrote to Tom, thinking he’d tell me that she was a brilliant crusader for all that was right (as in “right wing”) and that I should make her the centerpiece of my new book about Alaska.
Well, she has become the centerpiece, but not in the way I first intended. Tom wrote back that she was an ignorant nitwit. He quoted a high-ranking military friend who’d met her as governor and who’d said she had “less depth than a worn-out dime.”
That was my first clue that there was trouble in paradise. I started to pay attention to Palin. What I sensed from the start, and later verified through extensive research, was that by late summer of 2008 Sarah was already sourdough toast in Alaska.
As I write in THE ROGUE:
“As August waned…Sarah found herself at the low point of her political career. Former supporters, both Democrats and Republicans, turned against her. After promising honesty, transparency, and the highest ethical standards, she found herself accused of lying, cover-up, and actions that seemed, at the least, a grievous ethical breach.
Autumn is a mere blink of an eye in Alaska, and looking beyond it, Sarah would not have been able to see anything other than a long, dark winter of turmoil, acrimony and discontent. Then, like an angel on a mission from her Heavenly Father, John McCain swooped down to tap her with his magic wand.”
The rest is history.
And now more Alaskans would vote for Obama than for Sarah.
Repudiation–and that’s with a “p”–does not come in a stronger dose.
To put it another way to Palin supporters: Refudiate this.
Posted in 2012, Anchorage Daily News, Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: hays research, john mccain, mike porcaro, tom brennan barack obama | 107 Comments »
Sarah sinks ever lower: will sign “books” with Bristol at Minnesota mall
June 28, 2011
So desperate is Sarah for cheap and easy publicity–and a few extra bucks–that, as Associated Press reports, on Wednesday, she’ll be horning in on her daughter’s first “book” tour appearance at the Barnes & Noble in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Pure coincidence, of course, that Michelle Bachmann (aka “The Sarah Palin of 2011/2012”) is from Minnesota.
Someone less cynical about the Palins than I am might look at this as a manifestation of motherly love and show of support for a daughter whose “screw & tell” memoir hasn’t even cracked the amazon.com top 500 list despite Bristol’s appearance on Good Morning America today.
As I’ve made clear in earlier posts, I simply do not care about Bristol. Nor about any of Sarah’s other children, except for continuing to wonder who really gave birth to Trig.
I care about the phenomenon of Sarah only because–by many light years–she was the least qualified and most deranged person ever nominated for the presidency or vice presidency of the United States, and because she continues to successfully seduce the Beltway chattering class.
“To be or not to be,” is no longer the question. Now it’s, “Will she or won’t she?”
Like water, however, trash seeks its own level. Sarah’s appearance alongside her no-talent daughter at a Minnesota shopping mall is the clearest indicator yet that the 2008 Republican candidate for vice president of the United States is finally becoming not the national leader she never could have been, but part of our national landfill.
And in case you were wondering, no, I won’t be bringing Levi along on my own tour for THE ROGUE in September and October. (Media appearances already arranged in New York, Washington, Toronto, Alaska, Seattle and Los Angeles.)
Honestly, I’m not desperate enough to sit behind a table in a Minnesota shopping mall.
Although I willingly appeared on Fox & Friends with my son, Joe McGinniss Jr., when his novel, THE DELIVERY MAN (soon to be a major motion picture) was published in 2008.
Here’s a difference between McGinniss books and Palin “books.” Joe Jr. and I write our own: Sarah and Bristol aren’t able to do that.
And here’s another difference: neither my son Joe nor I would ever use/abuse a child the way Sarah did Trig at her Going Rogue signing at The Villages, Florida, in November, 2009.
I was there, in the company of my great friend Ray Hudson, of Newcastle, England, who after a brilliant career as a soccer player has become the world’s best soccer announcer for whom English is a first language. In his recent extraordinary profile of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, Jere Longman of the NYTimes made clear how Ray and only Ray can transliterate Messi’s genius into English. If anyone thinks world-class soccer is boring (I readily concede that the sub-standard version played in the U.S. is yawn-inducing), please check out this one clip among dozens on YouTube wherein Ray Hudson demonstrates that it’s not. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyEls-EqdOY
Ray flew up from Fort Lauderdale so I wouldn’t have to endure the Palin appearance at The Villages, an hour north of Orlando, on my own.
And thank God he did. Even in his great company, it was an ordeal.
But I snapped out of my torpor and into parent/grandparent mode when I saw how Sarah mistreated Trig.
As I write in THE ROGUE:
She emerges [from her bus], holding Trig. Once the TV cameras and still photographers have had their fill, she hands him off to an assistant, who soon puts him down on the asphalt parking lot and lets him crawl. The lot is covered with broken glass, cigarette butts, and old chewing gum, and Trig is barefoot. Eventually, Piper comes along and puts him in a stroller.
This is almost the full monty, family-wise. Chuck and Sally and old Aunt so-and-so, plus Piper and Trig. Chuck and Sally work the crowd. Leaving Trig in the stroller, so does Piper. She’s eight years old and has the fake smile of a ten-term congressman. For some reason this sticks with me as the saddest sight I see all day.
And now, on Wednesday, in a Minnesota shopping mall, patrons will get a twofer: Sarah and Bristol showing off their fake, smarmy smiles side by side as they peddle their fake books.
Sarah: where’s Trig?
Bristol: where’s Tripp?
Can either of you care about anybody but yourselves?
p.s. I’ve said I don’t care about Bristol or Levi and I don’t. But when they start poaching on my turf–taking up space in book stores with their whiny, self-aggrandizing, adolescent tripe–I’d be remiss not to point out the difference between thoroughbred race horses (i.e. Geoffrey Dunn and myself) and the steaming piles of shit said horses leave on the ground behind them (i.e. Sarah, Bristol, etc.)
Posted in 2012, Chuck Heath, Geoffrey Dunn, Joe McGinniss, michelle bachmann, Palin children, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | Tags: barcelona, barnes and noble, book tour, chuck heath, fox and friends, gol tv, horse racing, jere longman, joe mcginniss jr. the delivery man, lionel messi, mall of america, new york times, newcastle, piper palin, ray hudson, soccer, the villages, thoroughbred, trash | 170 Comments »
Bachmann Steals Sarah’s Thunder: Sarah Quits Again & Lets Her Take It
June 27, 2011
It’s tough to catch lightning in a bottle.
Equally tough to recapture the sound of thunder once someone else has spirited it away.
Sarah Palin’s endless, erratic dithering about her 2012 intentions has created a vacuum on the evangelical right that Michelle Bachmann has been quick to fill.
Who was all over the Sunday talk shows today? Bachmann. Suddenly, the press is all about her.
Just look at this.
Through her fear of engagement with America’s opinion-makers, and movers and shakers, Sarah has painted herself into a corner at which fewer and fewer people even bother to glance.
Bachmann has effortlessly slid into the groove that Sarah once occupied.
Suddenly, it’s Bachmann who is the “serious” female candidate for the GOP nomination.
Suddenly–or not so suddenly–Sarah has been shoved to the sidelines, from which her shrill cries can barely be heard.
I start the last chapter of THE ROGUE by writing:
The time has come to strike the tent.
That may seem like a strange thing to say in the last chapter of a book about the star performer of the circus. But no matter how much my book sales might benefit from a Palin presidential campaign in 2012, I sincerely hope that the whole extravaganza, which has been unblushingly underwritten by a mainstream media willing to gamble the nation’a future in exchange for the cheap thrill of watching a clown in high heels on a flying trapeze, is nearing the end of its run.
Someone who knows Sarah better than I do told me recently that the only thing that would propel her into the 2012 race would be a credible Michelle Bachmann candidacy. Because Sarah couldn’t bear to yield the limelight to another woman.
Yet it’s happened. I’d always thought Sarah would run for president because to not do so would destroy her credibility even among the cretins who would have supported her.
But she just didn’t have the guts, or the commitment, to do so. She’s always been a phony and a bully.
Because of John McCain’s desperate and deeply unpatriotic inanity, she got in over her head in 2008.
She’s been treading water ever since. Now she’s about to sink out of sight.
To switch the metaphor back to the circus, she’s skulked away from the center ring, conceding it to Bachmann without a fight.
A venal, lying, avaricious quitter she always was, and a venal, lying and avaricious quitter she’ll always be.
Goodbye, Sarah, “The Oft-Defeated.” We knew ye all too well.
Posted in 2012, evangelical, Fox, mainstream media, michelle bachmann, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | Tags: 2012 gop candidates, bachmann, cowardice, fear, instability, john mccain, quitting | 95 Comments »
“The Oft-Defeated”: Dishonesty in Palin Propaganda Film Starts with Title
June 25, 2011
The movie about herself that Sarah will travel to Iowa to watch on Tuesday–unless she cancels her trip–is called “The Undefeated.”
How could a serious person, even a serious conservative, use that title for a movie about Sarah?
She was defeated, most famously, in her run for vice president in 2008.
Prior to that, she was defeated in her run for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002.
Those are two defeats in tries for elective office.
But Sarah’s history of defeat is much more extensive.
She was defeated in the Miss Alaska pageant.
She was defeated in four different attempts to graduate from college before she finally managed it at University of Idaho.
She was defeated in her attempt to get a creationist majority elected to the Wasilla School Board in the early 1990’s.
She was defeated in her attempt to have abortion banned at the Mat-Su Valley hospital.
Before her election as Wasilla mayor, she was defeated when she applied for a position as dispatcher with the Palmer, Alaska, police department and was not hired.
After her election as Wasilla mayor, she was defeated in her attempt to appoint Alaska Independence Party and John Birch Society member Steve Stoll to the city council.
As mayor, she was defeated in her attempt to fire Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Emmons in 1997, a move that nearly led to her recall.
As mayor, she was also defeated in the courts when she tried to build a new sports arena on land the city did not own—a defeat for which Wasilla is still paying.
She was defeated in her first attempt to hold down an appointed job, when she had to bail from her post on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2004, due to her inability to grasp the complexities of the commission’s work.
Mike Miller, the ultra-right wing candidate she supported against Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the 2004 GOP primary for U.S. Senate, was defeated.
As governor of Alaska, she was defeated in her attempt to have her ex-brother in law Mike Wooten fired from the state police.
Also as governor, she was defeated in her attempt to require teenagers to obtain parental consent for abortions.
Also as governor she was defeated in her attempt to have the state pay the expenses involved in her bringing her children with her on political trips, and her image suffered an even greater defeat when it was disclosed that she’d been billing state taxpayers a per diem charge for the more than three hundred days she spent at her Wasilla home while serving as governor.
Her reputation as an ethical reformer suffered another defeat when a state-appointed investigator found that she’d abused the power of her office in her attempt to have Wooten fired.
In 2009, she was defeated in her attempt to install her former personal attorney, Wayne Anthony Ross, as Alaska attorney general.
Subsequent to her resignation, it’s become clear that her strongest initiative as governor–the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA)–has proven a costly failure.
And last summer Sarah was defeated in her attempt to bully me into vacating the premises I’d rented next door to her on Lake Lucille.
Not to mention how many Tea Party candidates she supported last fall were defeated. (Anybody remember Christine O’Donnell? How about Joe Miller, in her own (former) state of Alaska?)
How many defeats is that?
More than enough to make an utter mockery of the title of the hagiographic propaganda film that she hopes–and no doubt prays–will pull her national political career out of its terminal free-fall.
Posted in Breitbart, Joe McGinniss, Mike Wooten, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue, Uncategorized, Walt Monegan, Wasilla | Tags: abortion, abuse of power, alaska, lies iowa agia, palin movie, the undefeated | 112 Comments »
Sarah Scrubs Summer Plans because of JURY DUTY???
June 23, 2011
I was called for jury duty in May, 2010. Because I knew I’d be in Alaska, I requested a postponement, which was granted automatically.
I was called again for May, 2011. I arrived at the courthouse at 8 a.m. and sat in a room with other prospective jurors for two and a half hours. Then a judge came in and said she’d just dismissed the case our panel had been scheduled to hear. I was home by 11 a.m. and not subject to being called again for at least three years.
Sarah can’t go to Sudan because she’s been summoned for jury duty?
The lies just get bigger and bigger. She’s living inside a hot air balloon for which she supplies the hot air.
But you know what?
Balloons burst.
I’ll be back in Wasilla in September, Sarah. Maybe I can drop by to say hello and grab a piece of that blueberry pie you promised me via Facebook last summer. If you lock the kids in the basement, they’ll be safe. We can chat about how your jury duty went.
Among other things…
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue, Wasilla | Tags: alaska, blueberry pie, jury duty, pathological liar | 101 Comments »
