Joe McGinniss
More from Andrew Sullivan Soon: UPDATE: He’s Delivered…
He writes today: “I’ve been struggling to write a long new post on this entire thing, and am almost happy with it.”
I can say this about Andrew: he recognized from the start that the combination of Sarah Palin and the bedazzled media’s failure
to expose her for the fraud she was and is represented a genuine and grave threat to democracy. At the time, the 2008 election result was far from certain. In her Christian dominionism, her ignorance, her willfulness, her petulance, her spitefulness and her unbalanced belief that God really had annointed her to impose her narrow view of Christianity on a sinful, secular nation, Palin posed a clear and present danger to our way of life.
And we are by no means out of those woods yet. I have no doubt that she is currently preparing for a Fall Offensive that she thinks will carry her into next year’s primaries on a wave of fresh momentum. Given the weakness of the GOP field (Donald Trump?!!) , she could still become the Republican candidate.
The campaign that would follow that calamity would tear this country apart as maybe nothing has done since the Civil War.
So be grateful that Andrew Sullivan is standing watch.
UPDATE
…and many won’t like what he says.
From the start, Andrew has made an effort to be scrupulously fair about the Trig question. For being willing to consider even the possibility that Sarah’s story was a hoax, he was derided. Today’s post is further evidence of his scrupulousness, and although I disagree with him about many things (he is a Republican, after all) I’ve never found him to argue from false premises.
However, I’m less persuaded than he is by the belated first-person accounts of Quinn and Loy.
Loy wrote the original ADN story that said what a shock it was to learn that Sarah was pregnant, because she never looked it.
Now, three years later, he suddenly remembers that, yeah, actually, she did look pregnant, I just didn’t notice it at the time? A good cross-examiner could have fun with that in a courtroom.
As for Quinn, it was widely rumored that he was romantically involved with Palin aide Ivy Frye while covering Sarah as governor for AP. He doesn’t work for AP any more. I don’t know why, but I’ve heard the story of his relationship with Fry often enough and from enough different people without axes to grind that, at the least, it gives me pause in regard to Quinn’s credibility.
But set aside questions about the motivation of these two, suddnly key “eyewitnesses,” who decided in unison to go public last week. As all cops, prosecutors and defense attorneys know, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. How about eyewitness testimony three years later?
I’m a Trignostic. I don’t have a dog in this fight. But I don’t agree with Sullivan that the “recovered memories” of Loy and Quinn (neither of whom I know, by the way) should be accepted as having significant weight.
Not only is eyewitness testimony unreliable, but these were young male reporters covering the most dazzling & sexy political figure in Alaskan history. Sarah invites them to view her (veiled) belly in private? And now–contradicting what they wrote at the time–they both decide retroactively that she was obviously pregnant?
Something about that smells like fish to me: and not like fish that even Todd Palin could sell commercially.
Sullivan says the Loy and Quinn accounts “buttress–powerfully–the case that this whole thing is a tempest in a spatula.” He finds Loy and Quinn “persuasive.” I don’t.
He’s also persuaded by this conversation that Laura Novak had with a pediatric specialist, who argues that Sarah Palin is not “weird” enough to have fabricated her whole story.
Hmm. I’m not so sure. That reminds me of the argument that friends of Jeffrey MacDonald made in his defense: he couldn’t have murdered his wife and children, because he’s not the kind of man who could have done that. Turns out that he did, and he was. So a long-distance psychological evaluation of Sarah by a pediatric specialist who’s never met her doesn’t rise to the level of evidence either.
My verdict? Jury still out. But we thank Mr. Sullivan for his testimony.
Refreshing Rationality from New Yorker’s Amy Davidson
Finally, someone who personally believes that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig respects the right of
Andrew Sullivan and others to ask legitimate questions. Amy Davidson, a senior editor at The New Yorker posts on her Close Read blog.
This is like a breath of pure oxygen after choking on the aggressive contempt spewed by Salon, HuffPo, etc. over the past few days.
I can understand skepticism. But what’s fueling the anger of MSM toward those like Andrew Sullivan, who simply keep asking questions because no one is giving answers? You would think journalists would applaud Sullivan for doing his job. Instead, so many try to marginalize and demean him. I would expect this from hack polemicists like Breitbart, but I’d really like to know what’s behind the defensiveness at MSM sites such as Salon, Slate, and HuffPo. They laugh at and scorn Sarah for everything else she says, but on this one issue she’s declared beyond reproach and taken at her word? And the thoughtful and diligent Sullivan is ridiculed for saying it does matter if Sarah’s whole bit of performance art with Trig was only that?
What could matter more? This woman almost became vice president of the United States, and still harbors hopes (because God will open the doors for her) of becoming president.
I suspect, and certainly hope, that we’ve not heard the last from Andrew Sullivan on this question. I know we haven’t heard the last from me.
From Chicago, on the road: Happy Birthday!
Conservatives4Palin wishes Trig a happy third birthday. As do I, and as I’m sure all of us do.
I’ll be back with you on Friday.
Thought this was a good week to take care of some personal stuff.
Wrong again.
“Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.”
I’m Traveling This Week
Probably no new posts until Friday. Thanks for all the comments.
–Joe
Ain’t Gonna Work on Sarah’s Farm No More
In Madison, Wisconsin today–and not for the first time–Sarah tried to identify herself with organized labor.
She said, “I’m here as a patriot, as a taxpayer, and as a former union member.”
I said, “Huh?” Lord, lordy, in all my research I somehow must have missed Sarah’s blue collar union days. But at least there’s still time to write about them in my last chapter, due June 4. So I checked.
Turns out that Vince Beltrami, president of Alaska AFL-CIO, already wrote about those glory days–on Feb. 19,in the Anchorage Daily News.
Beltrami was irked by the “utter hypocrisy” of Sarah urging (via Facebook) her “union brothers and sisters” to oppose
the protests against Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s signing into law a bill that stripped public employees of union rights.
He wrote, “She belonged to my union, the IBEW, for about a minute, over twenty years ago, one summer, in a temporary position.”
Now, again, she claims a link with organized labor by saying she’s “a former union member?”
Who does she think she’s kidding?
She’s not even Maggie in Bob Dylan’s Maggie’s Farm, she’s Maggie’s ma.
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law…
She’s sixty-eight, but she says she’s twenty-four
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
Cold Water Thrown on Simmering Trig Hoax Allegations?
UK’s Daily Mail posts a photo of Sarah at her Dallas speech that shows her with “not only a pregnant stomach but a visibly fuller face and breasts, all signs of late pregnancy.” Case closed, say they.
Hey, none of the pictures of Sarah pregnant-or-not with Trig is the Zapruder film. None of them proves anything. At most, people can use them to support the opinion they already have. I just learned today, for example, that a couple of Brits spotted about-to-be princess Kate Middleton’s face on a mango jelly bean. Truth is as the eye of the beholder sees it.
But a mainstream backlash is developing against impudent suggestions that questions about Trig’s birth are legitimate. MSM news and opinion site Slate (owned by Washington Post Co.) posts an article headlined “Occam’s Razor Says Sarah Palin Is Trig’s Mother.”
Who doesn’t like Occam’s Razor? This is a philosophical principle posited by a 14th Century Franciscan friar called William of Ockham. It says, bottom line, that when there are varying explanations of an occurrence, the simplest is most likely to be true. In this instance, Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig. Period. End of story. That’s the simplest explanation. Occam says, “No story here, move along now.”
But as I just mentioned in a Twitter post, Occam never got to Wasilla. If he had, he might have thrown away his razor and grown a beard.
Sarah Palin’s Fantasy Life: UPDATE
When nothing else seems to be working, Sarah can be relied upon to conjure fantasies of older men coveting her daughters.
Palingates asks, “Why are sexual and other threats against her daughters such a recurring theme in Sarah Palin’s life? Why does she repeatedly paint an image where her daughters are the objects of men’s fantasies?…Who is sexualizing Sarah Palin’s underage daughters? Who’s conjuring up images involving sexual violence against her daughters again and again and again?”
Well, we all know that answer to that one: Chuck Heath’s middle daughter, that’s who.
And Papa Chuck makes sure to say, “we armed ourselves.” Just as they did against Trooper Mike Wooten.
As the father of two daughters, I can’t help but feel sorry for Sarah’s. What an atmosphere in which to grow up.
UPDATE: Jesse Griffin at Immoral Minority has spoken to Shawn Christy, the young man against whom Sarah obtained the restraining order.
Blodget Pokes a Stick at the Sleeping Bear
Henry Blodget, CEO and editor-in-chief of Business Insider, writes that Northern Kentucky University professor Brad Scharlott alleges Sarah Palin “probably staged a gigantic hoax about being Trig’s mother,” but “our media has been too wimpy and pathetic to investigate.”
The sleeping bear is awake now and starting to growl.
To be clear: I am not at this point accusing Sarah of staging a hoax in regard to Trig.
I am, however, like Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Beast and Jesse Griffin at The Immoral Minority, saying that mainstream media, as well as Alaskan media and some otherwise progressive Alaska bloggers, gave Sarah a free pass re Trig in 2008, and have continued to denigrate anyone who suggests that the issue–a cornerstone of her political identity–is worth exploring.
The question now is whether the mainstreamers will revoke the pass, given that they’ve written Sarah off for 2012.
“Ultimate Makeover” for Sarah Palin on Friday?
Sarah’s next speech will be at a Women of Joy gathering in Oklahoma City on Friday. Women of Joy is an evangelical organization that’s part of Phil Waldrep Ministries. In its mission statement, the Phil Waldrep Evangelistic Association says it seeks “to spread the gospel to all of the world.”
Sarah spoke to a Women of Joy conference in Louisville in spring of 2010, urging her audience not to “let anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the State.” Transcript of her speech available here.
It seems to me that Sarah has been badly wounded by her precipitous drop in popularity and relevance. Seeking solace, and trying to rebuild her self-confidence, which has always been far more fragile than her public appearances would suggest, she’s returning to her evangelical–Christian Dominionist roots.
The degree to which she’s wedded to Dominionist beliefs is something into which I delve deepy in The Rogue.
What better place for Sarah to lick her recent wounds than at a “Women of Joy” gathering in Oklahoma City? There’s no indication that Phil Waldrep will be there himself–he’s busy building his own evangelical radio network–but no doubt someone will be there, like Thomas Muthee was in Wasilla, to pray that Sarah remains impervious to infiltration by devils.
And if she’s really lucky, she might get nominated–if not by the GOP for president–at least by the Women of Joy for the “Girls Night Out Ultimate Makeover,” offered by Phil Waldrep’s organization.
Amazon.com
Amazon now has a Joe McGinniss page