Joe McGinniss
Tornadoes Kill, Wreak Havoc in Massachusetts, State of Emergency Declared: Will Sarah Palin Care?//UPDATE: Oslo’s Okay!
June 2, 2011
Tornadoes ripped through central/western Massachusetts just south of where I live today.
I was out and about and came home to find my wife prudently taking cover in our basement.
Our twelve-year old Norwegian elkhund, Oslo, was out when the storms hit and we still can’t find him.
Yet we were spared. Look at what happened in Springfield and surrounding towns.
As The New York Times reports, at least four were killed and damage was horrendous.
The Sarahbus en route from New York to Boston made it through unscathed, as did the media scrum following in its wake.
The question now is whether Sarah will change her itinerary in order to “comfort” victims here, as she did in Alabama last month.
Two reasons why I doubt it:
1) Sarah could never win our state’s electoral votes.
2) Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Pursestrings’ film crews are not on hand to record her offering a helping hand, as they were a month ago in Alabama.
No doubt, she’ll continue on to New Hampshire tomorrow, for her seashore clambake with Republican leaders there.
That’s okay. We don’t need her or Graham’s religious-right wing “charity,” whose purse strings go both ways (mostly emptying directly into his pocket.)
Maybe Sarah’s dad, Chuck Heath, could use his tracking skills to help us find Oslo, who ran into the woods behind our house at the first sound of thunder, but that’s okay, too.
I have no doubt the old boy will make it back home on his own, once he knows the storms have passed.
But we get hit with tornadoes for the first time in decades, just when Sarah’s bus is passing through?
Please, Sarah: stay away from my back yard and I promise I’ll never move in next door to you again.
Also, take mercy on poor little Piper and don’t drag her along on the next leg of your “family vacation” from hell.
UPDATE:
OSLO turned up this morning, wondering where his breakfast was. Seems none the worse for wear. Had no comment on where he’d spent the night. Thanks from Nancy and me to all of you who so graciously expressed such concern.
Posted in 2012, Chuck Heath, evangelical, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Palin children, right wing, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | 
Tags: clambake, franklin graham, massachusetts, new hampshire, norwegian elkhund, oslo, religious right, republican leaders, samaritan's purse, springfield, tornadoes | 
97 Comments »
THE ROGUE’s last chapter almost done–contest winner announced next week
June 1, 2011
My thanks to the many who contributed suggestions for my last chapter in response to my announcement of the contest on May 17.
The blue-ribbon panel of judges (whose identities I’ve kept private to protect them from the temptations of bribery) has finished its work and given me a short list of five finalists.
As I wrap up work on the last chapter this week, I’ll choose the winner of the $250 prize. Autographed copies of The Rogue will go to all five who made the short list.
Can anyone imagine how happy I am to be almost finished with this book?
I’ll be able to post the full jacket here soon–Random House/Crown has done a great job in every way, from copy-editing to legal review to jacket design. I’ll, of course, be keeping you all updated on the process as we move toward Sept. 20 publication. I can’t disclose anything about publicity appearances yet, except to say that I’ll be doing network TV from New York, Washington and Los Angeles, as well as–you betcha!–heading back to Alaska.
Transportation will be by airplane. Sorry, no bus tour. Nor will I bring my grandchildren along as human shields.
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: alaska, bus tours, crown publishing, random house, rogue publicity tour, the rogue, the rogue book jacket | 36 Comments »
Once Sarah Yearned for Glimpse of Ivana: Now she’s got Donald in her lap//UPDATE: with all the great pizzerias in NYC to choose from, Sarah and Trump eat HERE???
June 1, 2011
As I write in THE ROGUE:
In 1996,
Sarah was getting so antsy that one day in early April she actually drove to Anchorage just for a glimpse of Ivana Trump. She told Todd she was going to Costco to buy groceries. Instead, she went to J.C. Penney to see Ivana, who was peddling a line of perfume. She told the Anchorage Daily News that she was simply the wife of a commercial fisherman and she’d come to see Ivana “because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.”
Well, over the intervening fifteen years, hasn’t the country mouse turned into a city mouse!
No longer having to stand in a crowd at J.C. Penney in Anchorage, hoping for a whiff of Ivana’s perfume, Sarah now gets to sniff Donald’s aftershave up close, as worldwide media press their noses up against the glass, begging for a crumb from the royal table.
Hell, she’s not just the city mouse: she’s The Mouse that Roared.
And no matter how miserable poor little Piper might be, (like, does anybody think an Alaskan ten-year old actually enjoys posing for pictures with Donald Trump?) Sarah will go to sleep tonight feeling less like any sort of mouse than like the cat that ate the canary.
And why not? The harder she hits them, the more MSM begs for more.
UPDATE:
Never thought I’d actually write or say “gag me with a spoon,” but in a city with the most first-rate pizza restaurants in the U.S., Sarah and Trump go here?
Why didn’t they just have Domino’s deliver?
p.s. Does anybody want to suggest a caption to go with this pic, based on what Trump is saying to her as he eats cruddy chain store pizza with a fork? (Looks like Sarah wanted chopsticks.)
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Palin children, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: city mouse, country mouse, donald trump, famiglia pizza, ivana trump, j.c. penney, piper palin, pizza, the mouse that roared, times square | 64 Comments »
Actually, this is getting old fast…//UPDATE: Piper hits the wall, Sarah runs straight through it
May 31, 2011
I was thinking of writing a piece for The Daily Beast about a Palin appearance in New England this week.
But I’m not going to play hide-and-seek. So, Sarah, you can relax–at least until Sept. 20 when THE ROGUE will be published.
Seriously, how far does she think this “Close your eyes and count to twenty, then catch-me-if-you-can” approach will take her?
Actually, knowing her, and knowing MSM, I’m sure she thinks–with some justification–that it can take her all the way to the White House.
Even still, I feel sorry for the reporters assigned to the bus tour beat.
And I have an idea for MSM editors: un-assign them.
There’s a lot of talent out there chasing after ephemera.
And, as with the dog chasing the school bus, it’s only worse if you catch it.
Here’s something else, and uglier: Sarah used Trig as her photo-op prop on her Going Rogue tour in the fall of 2009.
Now, almost two years later, that poor Down Syndrome child is neither so photogenic nor so manageable, so he’s off (or under) the bus.
So it’s Piper who has to fill in. Do you think that poor girl had a choice?
Last summer, Sarah complained long and loud that I’d moved in next door because I wanted to peer at Piper through her bedroom window.
Her hot-to-trot flunkies like Beck and Van Susteren made that slanderous accusation into a right-wing meme.
But the notion was so silly and sick that I couldn’t even get mad about it.
I do, however, have granddaughters who are just about Piper’s age.
Their mothers and fathers have nurtured them since birth, and continue to do so. I can’t wait to see them again in July.
But what about poor Piper, reduced to a photo-op, and with no chance to opt off the bus?
The only time I saw Piper—I never laid eyes on her last summer—was at a Sarah book-signing at The Villages, Florida, just before Thanksgiving, 2009, when I reported on the event as part of my research for THE ROGUE.
I was appalled to see the poor girl ushered up to a FOX News platform for makeup before Sarah brought her on camera during an interview with one of the Fox blondes about what a swell Thanksgiving they were all going to have.
Trig, at least, was too young and too Down to know how he was being used.
Piper was being taught to love it.
And it’s only going to get worse.
In the end, there are three things to remember about Sarah:
1) Everything she says and does is fraudulent.
2) She cares about no one but herself.
3) She believes that God has told her that 1) and 2) are okay and that any harm she does to her children is merely collateral damage.
UPDATE:
Here’s one of the great things about kids: they can upstage even the Ultimate Upstager.
End of her first day on the bus, and poor little Piper is pissed. As Michael D. Shear reports for The New York Times:
The youngest Palin daughter looked none to happy to be delayed by the press corps, and repeatedly tugged at her mother’s arm during the questions. At one point, she said, “Mom, let’s go.”
After all this, I wouldn’t be surprised if in ten years Piper Palin joins Al Qaeda.
Posted in 2012, Chuck Heath, evangelical, glenn beck, Greta Van Susteren, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Palin children, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue, Todd Palin, Trig Palin | Tags: bullshit | 179 Comments »
Sarah’s Biggest Lie EVER: “It’s not about me.”
May 30, 2011
Sarah and Van Susteren, like the Canadian craniopagus conjoined twins, may actually share one mind.
Difference is that the four-year-olds are both cuter and smarter.
The link below is NSFAWMS (not safe for anyone with motion sickness)
http://politicons.net/sarah-palin-talks-to-greta-on-the-tour-bus/
Sarah actually gets it, but continues to pretend she doesn’t: she owes everything to the tickle-hungry, hit-starved minions of MSM.
Posted in 2012, Andrew Sullivan, Greta Van Susteren, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: canada, conjoined twins, greta van susteren, scientology | 32 Comments »
Sarah Palin and The Seven Dwarfs: Clear-eyed view from across the pond//UPDATE: sending a message?
May 30, 2011
I often think that Beltway pundits are so close to the screen that they can’t see the picture for the pixels.
And once they reach a collective opinion (i.e. the conventional wisdom from mid-January to April that Sarah’s disastrous plunge into the pool of Narcissus following the Tucson shootings of January 8 had finished her as a force in American politics), they cling to it the way Obama said that embittered poor whites in Appalachia and the Rust Belt “cling to guns or religion.”
Granted, Richard Adams works in The Guardian‘s Washington bureau, which puts him technically inside the Beltway.
Coming from England, however, he’s also a foreign correspondent and thus–unlike the blind men in the Indian fable— able to see the whole elephant. 
In today’s Guardian, Adams points out that there are two strong indicators that Palin will run for president: “everything she says and everything she does.”
Including the fact that her bus tour will take her to New Hampshire this week and to Iowa next month.
You can’t hardly get much more definitive than that.
As Adams writes:
Palin would be crazy not to run for the Republican nomination. Just look at the rest of the field.
UPDATE:
Nothing subtle about this:
Posted in 2012, evangelical, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Obama, Palin racism, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | Tags: 2012 gop candidates, 2012 primaries, dwarfism, dwarfs, dwarves, elephants. blind men, fundamentalist christian, GOP, iowa, narcissus, new hampshire, religious right, richard adams, sarah palin 2012 campaign, the guardian | 44 Comments »
New York Times calls Sarah Palin: “The Woman Who Might Be President”
May 30, 2011
She shows up in black leather with a Harley helmet on her head, and, yes, her talking points written on the palm of her hand, and mainstream media—-as exemplified by this story in The New York Times, (featured at the top of their home page, which is equivalent to above the fold on page one, back when anybody actually read the print edition)—-rolls over giddily and begs her to scratch their collective belly.
For sheer mastery of celebrity theater, Sarah Palin cannot be beat.
Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, let the anticipation build for hours on Sunday in the Pentagon’s North Parking Lot, where thousands of bikers (and their rumbling Harleys) had gathered for the annual Rolling Thunder rally ahead of Memorial Day.
And then, suddenly, there she was: Ms. Palin, with her husband, Todd, and the rest of the family. Wearing matching black Harley-Davidson helmets, they rode motorcycles toward the front of the procession through a crush of cameramen, photographers, reporters and leather-clad bikers, all jostling for just a peek at the woman who might be president.
It’s long past time for those of us who believe that Sarah continues to represent a real threat to the (largely) rational discourse that has been a hallmark of our democracy for 235 years to keep blaming her and recognize that it’s the enabling by mainstream media, desperate for page views as print circulation plummets, that keeps her not only afloat, but aloft.
MSM argue that they have to cover her because everything she says and does is “news.”
But it’s only news because they make it news.
Granted, as a candidate for vice president in 2008, Sarah was news. But since November, 2008–and even more so after she quit as Alaska governor in 2009–it’s been MSM’s presenting her as a serious person, even while deriding her in the snobbish fashion that allows her to call them “lamestream”–that has kept the helium in Sarah’s balloon.
What’s clear from the weekend is that nobody has learned a thing.
She starts a “bus tour”—one for which her organizers refuse to say where she’ll be tomorrow— on the back of a motorcycle, and she’s hailed for her “mastery of celebrity theater,” and praised for outFoxing (pun intended) the MSM journalists who chase after her, tongues hanging out.
Okay, but cover her in the entertainment section. Even as the solemn debate about whether she’ll actually be a candidate next year continues, The New York Times calls her, without apparent irony, “the woman who might be president.”
And Chris Matthews, who stated the obvious last week by saying, “she’s profoundly stupid,” said more recently:
“She is really good . . . she’s fantastic on a stage. When she walks out on that stage there’s something kinetic happening. She looks great, look at her, she’s alive, she’s smiling, she’s doing stuff, she’s moving around. You can’t take your eyes off of what she’s doing.”
God help us, his leg is tingling again.
And both John McCain and Andrew Sullivan said yesterday that given the right set of circumstances she could beat President Obama next year.
Hey, if exchanging nasty comments about Sarah on this or any other blog makes you feel good, by all means keep on doing it.
But don’t kid yourself that it’s having any effect in the real world, where media memes are created, where elections are decided, and where the moral, ethical and political contours of our country are being shaped.
Seeing the gleeful embrace that MSM is giving Sarah as she returns from self-imposed, post-Tucson exile, I don’t quite despair, but I worry.
And in my head, I replay Bob Dylan’s lyrics from “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” which he wrote and first performed in 1965, in the wake of the John F. Kennedy assassination:
You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue…The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
Sarah hops on a Harley at the Pentagon and MSM falls back in love with her again.
Happy Memorial Day.
Posted in 2012, Andrew Sullivan, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Obama, Palin children, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | Tags: Andrew Sullivan, bob dylan, chris matthews, d.c., harley davidson, it's all over now baby blue, mainstream media, memorial day, new york times, pentagon, rolling thunder, sarah paliln, washington | 80 Comments »
“I love that smell of the emissions.”
May 29, 2011
Sometimes you don’t have to say anything, because Motorcycle Mama–and motor mouth–Sarah says it all herself.
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | Tags: motor mouth, motorcycle, motorcycle mama, rolling thunder, Sarah Palin | 25 Comments »
THE CHAMPIONS: FC BARCELONA//UPDATE: Read appreciative concessions of defeat by England’s best sports writers
May 28, 2011
Today’s 3-1 win over Manchester United–and the score barely hints at their superiority throughout–puts the icing on the sweet, sweet cake that Barça have been serving to soccer/futbol/football fans around the world for many years.
To watch Barcelona in action is to witness not only a sporting event, but performance art at the highest level.
Yes, of course, there is the great Lionel Messi, at age 23 already perhaps the greatest player in the history of the sport, so splendidly portrayed by Jere Longman in the New York Times last week.
But today’s triumph, like all of Barça’s finest moments, arose not only from acts of individual brilliance, but from a degree of mental and physical teamwork–and from a level of psychic connection among teammates–seldom, if ever, seen before in any sport.
The motto of FC Barcelona is Més que un club–“More than a club.”
Barça paid for that in blood during the Spanish Civil War, when the city and the club were at the center of Catalonian resistance to Franco’s Madrid-based fascist regime.
But the team’s stunning triumph in the Champions League final makes today a day not for history lessons, but celebration.
If the current FC Barcelona were to adopt a new motto and theme song, nothing would be more fitting than Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”
That’s what their unique brand of artistry and athleticism bring to the world.
UPDATE:
Read about it from Paul Hayward in The Guardian here
and see the peerless Henry Winter’s story in The Telegraph here
All I can add is the new prayer I recite daily in thanks for the privilege of being able to watch Lionel Messi perform:
“God Bless The Mess.”
Posted in Joe McGinniss | Tags: catalonia, champions league, fc barcelona, guardian, henry winter, jere longman, lionel messi, new york times, paul hayward, spanish civil war, telegraph | 9 Comments »
The DC Motorcycle Gang Doesn’t Want Sarah: Who Will?
May 28, 2011
I’m just back from one of those effete, elite Eastern liberal dinner parties where we all sit around over white wine and brie and plot how to keep our black Muslim in the White House for four more years, and the question I was asked most often was, “Where in New England does Sarah think she can go with her bus tour where she won’t be laughed off whatever stage she takes?”
“Beats me,” was all I could say.
The organizer of the “Rolling Thunder” motorcyclist event said more, earlier today:
“She’s not invited…We’re not endorsing her…She’s definitely not speaking on our stage,”
Maybe not the kickoff Sarah was hoping for.
But can it get better in New England? Will she stop In Massachusetts, maybe Plymouth Rock, Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, or the site of the original Boston Tea Party?
Nobody knows, because the destinations of this first leg remain shrouded in secrecy. Hmm, why would that be? For fear that anti-Palin demonstrators will outnumber her faithful?
All I can tell you is that I’ll be covering one of her New England appearances next week for The Daily Beast.
Not to mention that it will make the perfect closing scene for the last chapter of THE ROGUE.
So Sarah and her gang are coming my way?
Bring ’em on!
And if she wants to know where to get the best fried clams in Massachusetts, or the best lobster in Maine, all she has to do is call me.
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | Tags: black muslims, boston tea party, brie, bunker hill, concord, effete liberals, lexington, massachusetts, motorcycles, muslims, new england, plymouth rock, rolling thunder, white house, white wine | 46 Comments »
