JOE McGINNISS

Of course, that’s not news in regard to book publishing today. With fewer people reading, thus fewer people buying books, print publishers are fighting for their lives. The visual image is replacing the written word as the primary unit of communication. No sense bemoaning that: it’s an evolutionary fact. Gutenberg started a revolution in 1450 with the invention of the printing press, and the written word will have had a 700-year run by the time it’s done and dusted a couple of generations from now.

As it sinks, it’s no wonder that its purveyors will do anything to try to keep afloat. As a psychiatrist once told me, “a drowning man has no morals.”

Thus, the imminent appearance of the ghostwritten “Bristol Palin memoir.”

The only thing that surprises me is that it will be published by William Morrow.
Granted, William Morrow is now just one more imprint of Harper Collins, the Rupert Murdoch-owned octopus that has published two ghostwritten “memoirs” by Bristol’s mom.

But here’s a short “inside publishing” story: in spring of 2009, when I was first considering writing a book about Sarah Palin, I met with William Morrow’s editor-in-chief. He told me he thought Sarah was an idiot, and disdainfully said he could never edit a book written about her, because she was simply not worth writing about.

I hope he has a capable assistant with a broader view assigned to edit Bristol’s ghostwriter, Nancy French, who previously wrote a book of her own called Red State of Mind: How a Catfish Queen Reject Became a Liberty Belle.

Just when you think you’ve seen the bottom of the cesspool you find that you’re still on the surface.

The horrific photo above shows Wasilla’s Jeremy Morlock gleefully posing as he lifts the head of an Afghan civilian he’s just murdered.

The New York Times Magazine has just posted an extensive story by Luke Mogelson about Morlock and his psychopathic platoon buddies called “A Beast in the Heart of Every Fighting Man.”

I urge you all to read it, and to bear it in mind the next time you hear Sarah Palin say she’s “the proud mother of a combat vet.”

Sarah’s reference is to her son, Track, who was never actually in combat.
But one of Track’s best friends from high school, Jeremy Morlock, was.
Jeremy’s sister, April, is Bristol Palin’s best friend, often seen with her in LA during Bristol’s days on “Dancing with the Stars.”

And the ties between the Palin and Morlock families are much deeper and more longstanding than that. They go back to Todd Palin’s hometown of Dillingham, and Todd’s relationship with Jeremy’s mother’s twin sister, and extend through the vandalism of Jeremy’s mother’s house by Willow Palin and her friends in December, 2009.

Not to be a tease, but I write about all this in The Rogue and can’t say any more before the book is published on September 20.

Morlock’s lawyer was able to cut him a deal that could see him paroled in only seven years, in return for ratting out his buddies. Shushannah Walshe at The Daily Beast wrote more about Morlock here.

Obviously, I don’t believe in guilt by association. But I wonder whether Sarah, as she praises our troops and tries to identify with them as a Military Mom–the way she used to claim she was a Hockey Mom (or should that be Hokey Mom?)–gives even a passing thought to Track’s old buddy, Jeremy.

Among the many character witnesses to testify at Jeremy’s court martial, the Palins were notable by their absence.

Millions of Americans have fought in wars on foreign soil. Almost all with honor and courage.
I met many when I was in Vietnam in 1967 and again in 1971. They did their best for a doomed and losing cause.

I never met one who would have grinned with pride, as you can see Jeremy Morlock doing, while posing with the body of a defenseless civilian he’d just killed.

Look at that photo again. Does it remind you of another?

UPDATE:

Bristol Palin and April Morlock with Bristol’s son, Tripp

And thanks to a commenter for reminding me that Sarah can’t possibly think it’s unfair of me to call attention to the multi-generational Palin/Morlock relationships.

As she has said:

“I do not think that it is off-base nor mean-spirited…to call someone out on their associations.”

“Some curious Americans are actually asking the questions. And [the media] are trying to make those curious Americans sound kind of crazy.”

So said Sarah to Van Susteren last night. Clearly, she was talking about Justin Elliott, Jason Linkins, David Weigel and others who are trying to fit Andrew Sullivan for a tinfoil hat. Wasn’t she?

Ready to hold your breath now, waiting for Sarah to produce the birth certificate and medical records that could put an end to the Trig rumors once and for all?

President Obama has put the birth certificate ball squarely in Sarah’s court.

But why is it making that funny ticking sound?

UPDATE:

See Sarah Jones in PoliticsUSA, “The Toe-Sucking Media and the Many Myths of Sarah Palin.”

Ms. Jones tells it like it is, no words minced, no punches pulled.

Take a bow, American Press. You have aided and abetted Sarah Palin’s bullying since the day she took that national stage.

THE ILLUSTRATION ABOVE IS NOT MEANT TO SUGGEST

THAT ANDREW SULLIVAN IS AN ATHEIST.  HE IS NOT.

HE DOES NOT QUESTION THE BIRTH OF JESUS.  ONLY TRIG.

Andrew doesn’t need me linking to his new Palin posts. He does quite well on his own.

But what he says today is so pertinent to what he and I and others said yesterday, I’d be remiss not to urge you to read it.

He’s rightly merciless about the self-serving mainstream political media in this country. Someone remarked to me just yesterday that they chase around after each other like hamsters in a wheel, not recognizing that the wheel is not the universe. They write as much to impress one another as to communicate insight and truth. And they talk mostly to each other, thus finding reinforcement among like minds for their pre-existing opinions. This is hall of mirrors journalism, in which every image they see is in some way a reflection of themselves. Hall of mirrors journalism is practiced with particular avidity in Washington, D.C. and among those political journalists living outside the Beltway only because they can’t find a way in.

Sullivan asks,

“are we skeptics supposed to just sit back and be mocked by a pathological liar putting her own credibility against ours?…It seems to me that when some simple, readily available medical records could end this excruciating debate in one easy swoop…it is professional negligence that MSM won’t even ask for such proof, and devote far more energy to defending their own past than the facts at hand.”

Here’s one simple question for Sarah Palin, which does not involve the release of medical records: Why did you say last September that Trig was born in Anchorage, not Wasilla?

In regard to medical records and actual eyewitness testimony–as opposed to the recovered memories of Quinn and Loy–I had a brief and typically futile Twitter exchange earlier today, as follows:

@FeistyShelia

I’m friends with a nurse who was there when Trig was born, watched Sarah push him out. You’re an idiot.

@joemcginniss

I’d like to talk to her, on the record. Can you please have her get in touch with me?

@FeistyShelia

she would lose her job because of HIPPA. Sarah would have to sign a release. She would LOVE to go on record!

@joemcginniss

Why wouldn’t Sarah sign a release? She could get rid of this story once and for all?

@FeistySheliah

no it wouldn’t. Why would anyone ask? It’s ridiculous. People would doubt validity, make excuses. Better to ignore crazy.

@joemcginniss

Too bad. A true eyewitness to the birth could make the whole issue go away overnight.

@FeistyShelia

People wouldn’t believe she was telling the truth. Can’t argue with lunatics…then you become the crazy one.

There you have it:  a delivery room nurse who actually witnessed Sarah give birth to Trig.

But will she talk?  Nope.  Far better to insult those sincerely interested in learning the truth with words like “crazy,” “lunatics” and “stupid.”

It would be different if Sarah had a reputation for truthfulness. But how can people be asked to take her at her word on this issue when her lies about so many others are documented.