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 »
Hey, for all you NY Yankee fans: Steinbrenner Was An FBI Stooge
May 10, 2011
NY Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, with whom I once dined the night before a Kentucky Derby in Louisville, and who was a graduate of Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass., where I lived for more than twenty years, has been exposed by Richard Sandomir of the New York Times as an FBI fink.
Sandomir writes:
His help to the F.B.I. in the 1970s and ’80s helped lead to his receiving a pardon from President Reagan in 1989 for a conviction for illegal contributions to Richard M. Nixon’s 1972 presidential re-election campaign. Steinbrenner had been denied a pardon in 1979.
I’m not going to speak ill of the dead. But at the earliest possible opportunity I’m going to head for a Red Sox game at Fenway Park to clear my head.
Pardoned by Reagan for illegal contributions to Nixon?
For Alaskan readers, don’t that just reek of Bill Allen?
Who in their right mind would want to plunge into such a swamp of compromise and corruption?
Oh, wait, I know who:
Yup, that’s Sarah, who was Rudy Giuliani’s guest at a Yankee game in June, 2009, less than a month before she quit her job as governor of Alaska.
Make that a doubleheader at Fenway.
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?
Thought It Couldn’t Get Worse? BRISTOL’S “Reality Show” Coming Soon
May 9, 2011
The “new look” Bristol Palin (that’s her above, before and after plastic surgery) will be unveiled this fall via the Palins’ favorite medium: “reality” TV.
As long as Hollywood’s cash register drawer remains open, there will always be a Palin with a hand in the till.
The good news is that just as with Sarah’s own unreality show on TLC last year, nobody has to watch.
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 »
“THE LIES OF SARAH PALIN” by Geoffrey Dunn to be published Tuesday
May 9, 2011
Congratulations to Jeff Dunn. His full first name is Geoffrey, but his friends–among whom I’m proud to number myself–call him Jeff.
On Tuesday, St. Martin’s Press will publish his first book:
The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power.
I’ve read it and I think it’s terrific. It’s the first comprehensive and authoritative book-length (445 pages) account of Sarah Palin’s rise to Alaskan power and national prominence. As I’ve told Jeff privately, his book “thoroughly and mercilessly exposes her mendacity and meretriciousness.”
Geoffrey Dunn is a journalist and documentary filmmaker who teaches at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and who has blogged frequently about Sarah Palin at Huffington Post over the past couple of years.
He is also a husband, father and cancer survivor, one of whose children, Tess Dunn, is building a career as a singer/songwriter, despite suffering from cystic fibrosis.
I’ve gotten to know Jeff over the past couple of years. It has been a privilege and it continues to be a joy. People might tend to think that two authors working on books about the same subject would view one another, at best, as rivals. More often than not, that’s probably true. But Jeff and I have never felt that way. We have been open and honest with each other from the start and we’ve never felt ourselves to be in competition. We have, in fact, helped each other as much and as often as we could along the way. Just checking my emails, I see that Jeff and I have corresponded more than 150 times since I left Alaska last September. And that’s in addition to the time we’ve spent talking on the phone.
So there’s no rivalry here: Bravo, il mio grande amico! Tanti auguri!
I hope The Lies of Sarah Palin enjoys all the success that it and Geoffrey Dunn deserve.
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 »
Another Breitbart Twitterspat, alas…//UPDATE: further thoughts re Twitter
May 5, 2011
I happened by Twitter this afternoon and saw this:
jjmnolte
Shocka’: @joemcginniss aka creep who moved in next to Palin family, can only respond 2my column with lazy insults.
This was in response to my earlier post today Breitbart Blogger Says MSM Smearing Sarah, in which Mr. Nolte said Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg were in the vanguard of a leftist conspiracy to undermine Sarah Palin’s bid for the presidency next year.
The way Palinists like Beck and Van Susteren have flocked around the words “creep” and “stalker” to describe my next-door neighborliness of last summer has interested me: it’s like–as Sarah does–they have to inject implications of deviant sexuality into any circumstance that displeases their queen.
So I replied to Mr. Nolte:
at least I didn’t stoop to name-calling.
Then he said:
What would you call you … who creeplily moved in next door to “study” a family? I’m open to suggestions
Then I said:
A journalist. I was writing a book about her. I did nothing to invade her or her family’s privacy. As THE ROGUE will show.
Then he said:
Well, you keep weaponizing children against political foes & forcing yer subjects to build fences, journalist.
Then I said:
I’m sorry, John, I didn’t understand that. I “keep weaponizing children?” You think I run a school for suicide bombers?
Then he said:
Wow. Playing dumb. Excellent retort!
Then I said:
Not “playing dumb” but even if I were, playing dumb is better than being dumb. Geronimo! Over & out.
Now, how useless was that? A waste of his time and mine. My publisher is urging me to twit, but I don’t see the point. Nobody changes anybody’s mind. What can anyone say in 140 characters that will add heft to the public discourse?
Seems to me Twitter is just a gimmick for show-offs. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Over and out.
UPDATE:
I just checked Twitter again and saw that there are literally thousands of real-time comments about the utterly pointless Fox News GOP presidential debate in South Carolina tonight.
The whole thing is an exercise in futility because a) this is May 2011, not 2012 and b) of the likely “serious” GOP candidates only Pawlenty showed up.
So this is nothing but hot air filling cable air time. And I’d say the same if it were Democrats. This is a non-event deserving non-coverage.
But on Twitter? Thousands of people who must not have much to interest them in life are twittering back and forth about every syllable uttered.
It made me think of MacBeth in Act V, Scene V of MacBeth:
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
That’s how I see twitterers (myself included, when I succumb to the lure of the cheap thrill): strutters and fretters, full of sound (even if not always fury), signifying nothing.
Twitter is white noise. As in Don DeLillo’s classic 1985 novel, White Noise.
You can’t see it, smell it, feel it, taste it, or even actually hear it: but it’s all around you, consuming and absorbing you, without you even noticing that it’s rendering you dead to life, even while you think you’re still alive.
