The Rogue
That Amazing Robert Hunt Illustration atop The Atlantic’s Palin Story//UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan on the illustration and the story
May 11, 2011
Robert Hunt is one of the most extraordinary illustrators of our time.
In fact, let’s skip the qualifiers and just call the man a great artist.
The Atlantic commissioned him to do the illustration that accompanied “The Tragedy of Sarah Palin” in their June issue (about which I blogged earlier today.)
Whatever one might think of Joshua Green’s article, there is no denying the power of the portrait. It’s Sarah Palin as she sees herself, and as her worshippers see her: in the Oval Office.
It turns out that The New Republic was also aware of Robert Hunt’s artistic brilliance.
They commissioned him to do a portrait of Barack Obama for the cover of their December 2, 2009 edition, which contained a number of articles highly critical of the president.
Hunt has a fascinating account of his interactions with the magazine as he worked on the illustration.
As he describes (and shows), he offered them several possibilities:
Which one did they choose?
Did they choose the one that showed President Obama looking the difficulties of his job straight in the eye?
Or even one that portrayed him in profile, pensive and deliberative, possibly humbled by his responsibilities?
No, The New Republic wanted an illustration that showed him cowed, defeated, turning his back and walking away.
And so of all the choices Robert Hunt offered them, this was the illustration they used:
I hope Robert Hunt will share on his blog his alternatives to the Sarah Palin illustration The Atlantic chose.
Whether he does or not, isn’t Robert Hunt amazing?
As for the editors of the mainstream New Republic and Atlantic, what subliminal message do you think they are trying to convey?
Take a look, side by side:
And Sarah complains about “lamestream” media?
MSM continues to roll out the red carpet for her, because MSM wants her to run against Obama next year.
He’ll be reelected, no matter who his opponent is. But MSM is increasingly desperate for readers and viewers.
MSM is sinking fast, and as a former psychiatrist of mine once told me, “A drowning man has no morals.”
MSM wants Obama v. Palin, because the alternatives are so dull. Without her, nobody will bother to read or watch and MSM numbers and dollars will continue their flight to alternative sources of news, opinion and entertainment.
Only Sarah can juice up the campaign: with Tea Party moronics, blatant racism and Christian Dominionist hate.
So MSM is trying to seduce her now in order to betray her later, after they’ve used her to improve their bottom lines, just as she’s used them to improve hers.
Frankly, they deserve each other, and may the worse whore lose.
But before the whole orgy really heats up, take one more look at Robert Hunt’s vision of President Obama that The New Republic didn’t want you to see:
That’s Mr. President.
Sarah is Ms. Pretender.
UPDATE:
Andrew Sullivan tells it like it is.
Posted in 2012, evangelical, Fox, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Obama, Palin racism, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | 
Tags: barack obama, illustrators, mainstream media, racism, robert hunt, Sarah Palin, stupidity, Tea Party, the atlantic, the new republic | 
30 Comments »
What Sarah Palin REALLY Cares About//UPDATE: LA Times on what Sarah and Common have in common
May 10, 2011
If nothing else, Sarah’s new advisers have managed to bring her Twittermania under some semblance of control.
Last summer, it seemed that Sarah was tweeting hourly, to the extent that it was devaluing her “brand.”
I’ve always thought that Twitter was the perfect medium of expression for Sarah. If she has to extend a thought, feeling or impulse beyond 140 characters, the vacuity of her mind becomes plain for all to see.
But even within the Twitter framework the sheer relentlessness of her tweets lessened the impact of her opinions. If somebody never shuts up, we stop listening to anything they have to say.
The post-Tucson version of Palin sometimes lets whole days pass without twittering. Not counting re-tweets, Sarah has only tweeted five times this month.
Thus, when she does, we’re more likely to assume it’s about something that matters to her.
That’s why her most recent tweet is so interesting:
Oh lovely, White House… http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/09/burn-a-bush-michelle-obama-invites-rapper-common-to-a-poetry-reading/
What got Sarah’s goat? Michelle Obama’s invitation to the Grammy-winning hip-hop artist Common to participate in tomorrow night’s White House tribute to American poetry.
No problem when Barbara Bush welcomed child-molester Michael Jackson to the White House.
But let a black president’s black wife invite a black rapper to a broad-based celebration of an art form–poetry–that Sarah knows nothing about, and her lily-white knee jerks immediately in outrage.
In THE ROGUE, I’ll have plenty to say about Sarah Palin’s attitude toward people of color.
But with today’s tweet she’s given us all a little preview.
UPDATE:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/05/sarah-palin-and-common-have-at-least-two-things-in-common.html
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Michelle Obama, Obama, Palin racism, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: black artists, common, hip-hop, michelle obama, poetry, rap, tucson shooting, white house | 36 Comments »
If only Sarah weren’t Sarah, She Coulda Been A Contender//UPDATE: John Podhoretz in Commentary
May 10, 2011
That’s the thesis propounded by Joshua Green in the June issue of The Atlantic.
The magazine, however, went with the classier title, “The Tragedy of Sarah Palin,” and illustrated the piece with the striking image above of Sarah in full presidential mode.
“But over the past few months, Palin has begun fortifying her profile by visiting foreign countries and delivering speeches that extol her record as governor, especially on energy, as she did in March to an audience of international business leaders in India….She seems to be reintroducing herself.”
Given that I’m presently writing the last chapter of THE ROGUE I’m not going to critique Green’s piece, though I’m sure some will take issue with his conclusion that Sarah was a great governor of Alaska, who accomplished extraordinary things.
I find it interesting that during his week in Alaska Green spoke to the same people I talked to two-and-a-half years ago about Sarah’s accomplishments as governor–Gregg Erickson, Pat Galvin, Hollis French, Les Gara–and came away with conclusions very different from those I reached and published in my 2009 Portfolio cover story.
I will say that I hope Howard Kurtz reads Green’s story. In the current Newsweek, Kurtz writes about the end of the Sarah Palin phenomenon in a piece titled, “Is Sarah Palin Over?”
Kurtz says she’s toast. Green says she just might be a soufflé only starting to rise.
Maybe Andrew Sullivan, formerly of The Atlantic and now with Tina Brown’s Daily Beast-Newsweek behemoth could moderate a Kurtz-Green debate on The Dish.
UPDATE:
Even Commentary compares Sarah to Daryl Strawberry.
Even while pining for what might have been, Podhoretz writes her off. But who will win his heart next?
Or can Sarah lure him back by offering lunch on the concrete block on Lake Lucille, the way she seduced his buddy Bill Kristol over lunch at the governor’s mansion in Juneau?
Posted in 2012, Andrew Sullivan, Joe McGinniss, The Rogue | Tags: 2012 gop candidates, ACES, AGIA, Andrew Sullivan, howard kurtz, joshua green, natural gas, newsweek, oil, palin for president, Portfolio, Sarah Palin, the atlantic, the daily best, the dish | 27 Comments »
After 22 Years, My Rebuttal to Janet Malcolm Goes Public
May 9, 2011
Thanks to the miracles of modern science (i.e. the internet) the 26-page essay I published as an epilogue to the 1989 edition of Fatal Vision, in response to Janet Malcolm’s wrongheaded and factually inaccurate New Yorker attack on my journalistic ethics and me, (later published as a book titled The Journalist and The Murderer) is now available online.
And guess where?
Right here. On this very site where you already are.
As I say in the introduction to the epilogue–I know it’s weird to have an “introduction” to an “epilogue,” but what can I do?–
In 1989, the New Yorker published a two-part article by Janet Malcolm entitled “The Journalist and the Murderer.” In the article, which was published in book form a year later, Malcolm offered her skewed perception of my relationship with Jeffrey MacDonald–the subject of my 1983 book, Fatal Vision–to support her bizarre hypothesis that “Every journalist…knows that what he does is morally indefensible.” So numerous and egregious were Malcolm’s omissions, distortions and outright misstatements of fact that I felt compelled to set the record straight in an epilogue to the updated edition of Fatal Vision that was published in 1989. There is no statute of limitations on truth. Even now, twenty-two years later, Malcolm’s fictions ought not to be accepted uncritically.
What makes this relevant to THE ROGUE is that Jeffrey MacDonald was the first pathologically narcissistic psychopath about whom I ever wrote a book.
Guess who’s the second?
Why Is This Not A Surprise?
May 9, 2011
The poorer and less educated you are, the more likely you are to like Sarah.
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: 2012 campaign, candidates, college degree, education, GOP, income level, low income, Sarah Palin | 14 Comments »
HAPPY KENTUCKY DERBY DAY//Update: The Perfect Mint Julep//Update 1.1: Wait ’til Next Year
May 6, 2011
The 137th Kentucky Derby will be run tomorrow at Churchill Downs in Louisville. Up to twenty (depending on late scratches, such as UNCLE MO this morning) three-year olds will be racing a mile-and-a-quarter, the first time these young adults have been asked to go that far.
My money will be on DIALED IN (shown above winning the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park on April 3), trained by the incomparable Nick Zito (upper right) and ridden by the brilliant Frenchman Julien Leparoux.
To celebrate Derby Weekend, I’m taking time off from my Sarah Palin watch.
I leave you instead with this story I wrote for Sports Illustrated in 1969 about my first Kentucky Derby, forty-eight years ago.
Enjoy the weekend! NBC will have live Derby coverage starting at 5 p.m. EDT tomorrow.
By the way, Nick Zito says Bin Laden deserved his fate. DIALED IN was not available for comment.
UPDATE:
Henry Watterson, founder of the Louisville Courier-Journal, and a man described almost a hundred years ago as “the last of the great personal journalists,” settled once and for all the debate about the recipe for the perfect mint julep. He wrote:
“Pluck the mint gently from its bed, just as the dew of the evening is about to form upon it. Select the choicer sprigs only, but do not rinse them. Prepare the simple syrup and measure out a half-tumbler of whiskey. Pour the whiskey into a well-frosted silver cup, throw the other ingredients away and drink the whiskey.”
UPDATE 1.1
That’s how it goes in racing. They are horses, not machines. DIALED IN never got into the race.
Who knows why? You’d have to ask him, and he ain’t talking.
But the Derby, won this year by ANIMAL KINGDOM, always produces good stories:
a) Graham Motion, the British trainer, learning early last week that his bigger horse, TOBY’S CORNER, hurt himself in training and could not run in the Derby–then saddling lesser light ANIMAL KINGDOM, who won at odds of 21-1.
b) John Velasquez, one of America’s top jockeys for the past decade, learning last week that his horse, probable favorite UNCLE MO, had diarrhea so bad that he had to be scratched from the race.
c) Robby Albarado, the regular rider for ANIMAL KINGDOM, getting thrown from a horse he was riding last week and being injured badly enough so that Motion had to find a new rider.
d) Motion, the day after UNCLE MO was scratched, signing the suddenly unhorsed Velasquez to take Albarado’s seat aboard ANIMAL KINGDOM.
Result: ANIMAL KINGDOM, Motion and Velasquez win. Albarado, nursing a broken nose, loses.
I hope Velasquez, a classy guy, will give Albarado a share of the $125,000 he’ll receive for his two minutes and two second display of expertise.
Why do I love horse racing? It’s like opera.
Why do I love opera? It’s like horse racing. Except in opera you know the winners and losers ahead of time.
And how is the Kentucky Derby like bad sex? Prolonged buildup, mounting anticipation, excitement cresting to fever pitch–and then in two minutes it’s all over.
Posted in Joe McGinniss, The Rogue | Tags: bin laden, dialed in, florida derby, gulfstream park, horse racing, julien leparoux, kentucky derby, louisville, nbc, nick zito, uncle mo | 27 Comments »
BUSINESS INSIDER Begins Syndication of Joe McGinniss “The Rogue” Blog
May 5, 2011
Henry Blodget’s Business Insider today begins syndication of some of these blog posts. The first is here.
I’m pleased to be associated with Business Insider, one of the fastest growing sites on the internet, and to be working with someone as innovative and energetic as Henry Blodget.
You can look forward to posts from this blog appearing regularly in Business Insider in the weeks and months ahead.
Posted in Business Insider, Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: business insider, henry blodget, joe mcginniss, Sarah Palin, syndication, the rogue, the rogue blog | 19 Comments »
VF’s James Wolcott Takes Note of Sarah’s Next Crusade
May 5, 2011
Wolcott seems amused by Sarah’s choice of Peter Schweizer as her new “foreign policy advisor.” But don’t take this appointment lightly. Clearly, it signals a new direction for Sarah: an all-out Christian militant war against the Evil Empire of Disney.
Let “Pussyfoot” Obama fight the war on terror. Sarah will lead the ethnic cleansing of Disney theme parks around the world to assure that no traces of dreaded homosexuality remain.
Posted in Breitbart, evangelical, Joe McGinniss, Obama, right wing, The Rogue | Tags: crusades, disney, disneyland, disneyworld, donald duck, ethnic cleansing, gays, homosexuality, mickey mouse, schweizer, theme parks | 11 Comments »
Breitbart Blogger Says MSM Smearing Sarah
May 5, 2011
Here I was, foolishly thinking mainstream media bears responsibility for the degree to which Sarah Palin has been able to inflict herself on American society, when a Breitbart blogger set me straight. “Big Hollywood” editor in chief John Nolte explains that, in fact, MSM, “in their desperate efforts to undermine and destroy” Sarah, have “weaponized” her own children (gasp!) as “political bludgeons against her.”
It’s a leftist conspiracy, all right, led by well known, arch-radical militants Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg.
Someday, I’d like to see Breitbart, Glenn Beck and Greta Van Susteren all on stage somewhere with a physician who could tap each of their knees with a rubber mallet, just to see whose jerks fastest.
Posted in 2012, Breitbart, Fox, glenn beck, Greta Van Susteren, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Obama, right wing, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: 2012, barbara walters, breitbard, conspiracy, GOP, john nolte, right wing, Sarah Palin, smear, whoopi goldberg | 12 Comments »
“Remember When We Cared?” I’m Afraid We Still Should
May 5, 2011
Alexandra Petri is a terrific young pundit-to-be, who stepped straight from Harvard (class of 2010) into an opinion blog at the Washington Post.
She doesn’t need my good wishes in order to succeed, but I extend them to her anyway. I’ve actually read some of the columns she wrote for the Harvard Crimson and have found her to be a clever writer with a keen wit. She’s a breath of fresh air in the flatulent opinion pages of the Post.. Bookmark her and read her: she’s a voice of the future.
But like many young artists, Ms. Petri lacks a sense of history–even recent history. As witness her most recent Post piece:
“Remember when we cared.”
It’s yet another argument that Sarah Palin doesn’t matter any more.
I hope Ms. Petri will be proven right, eventually, but the headline on her column: “Palin…Remember when we cared?” is premature.
Only last weekend, Ms. Petri’s own newspaper cared very much about Sarah.
Presumably, Ms. Petri has not yet been compromised to the extent that she would have attended the “after-parties” (why do I think of placental expulsion whenever I hear that term?) that followed the White House Correspondents’ annual dinner–which, by the way, the New York Times does not allow its reporters to attend–but had she done so, she would have learned that Sarah “Isn’t She Pretty, Isn’t She Nice?”” mattered very much to the WaPo reporters who were there.
Even Sarah’s dithering for fifteen seconds before naming Greta Van Susteren as the most influential journalist in America became news on many a website over the past couple of days.
The sad fact is that only a few days ago the Washington Post said Sarah stole the show at the biggest inside-beltway-insider-politico-media event of the year.
The time will come when we’ll remember–or not–those days or yore (and bore) when we cared about Sarah. But it’s not here yet, as I’m afraid the next few months will make clear.
So do the country a favor, Ms. Petri: don’t stop paying attention yet.
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: alexandra petri, harvard, harvard crimson, Washington Post | 31 Comments »
