Former reporter and current blogger, Julia O'Malley wants people to think that Sarah Palin was not always this way. (Spoiler alert: Yes she was.)

Here is a portion of O'Malley's revisionist history courtesy of The Guardian:  

There was a time when Sarah Palin was normal by Alaska standards. Way back before the hoopla, and way before she endorsed Donald Trump, she made sense as a politician here. That’s not the case any more. 

I’m told she lives in Alaska most of the time, but she’s invisible in public life. But back in the day, I liked her – and so did many in my community. I’m not conservative, but she grew on me when I worked as a reporter in Anchorage in the mid-2000s, and the reason had nothing to do with politics. She was a kind of regular person I recognized as of this place. Tough, funny, pragmatic. She loved Alaska like I did. If you didn’t know her then, it’s hard to explain or believe.

O'Malley then offers this picture, which shows Palin just hobnobbing with the locals and which she believes was NOT a photo-op, that there tells you that she does not understand Sarah Palin.

Above all, Palin was nice. If a reporter called her office, she called back on their cell phone: “Hi, this is Sarah.” Like most people here, she was religious, but didn’t talk about it publicly. Like most people, her family hunted and owned guns, but she didn’t talk too much about that either. She was fuzzy on policy details, but only insiders noticed. She made a big deal about government corruption. 

“She wanted to be liked and, as a result, was likable,” said a reporter friend of mine who covered her as governor. “Her only real enemies were white-guy boys club oil politicians who were getting indicted by the feds.”

Okay well there is some truth to this.  Palin absolutely was focused on her polls numbers and receiving positive coverage from media outlets.

So yes she returned calls fairly quickly, IF you were somebody that she perceived to be "on the team."

In fact at one time Dennis Zaki was one of those people, and broke into the news biz to some degree based on his access to Sarah Palin and the number of great photos he took of her and other politicians in Alaska.

However I was there when he lobbed the first criticism her way, and let me tell you the arctic winter has NOTHING on Sarah Palin when it comes to freezing people out.

O'Malley then documents when SHE thinks everything changed for Palin:

I rode along in the motorcade the day she came back to the state to vote. We whizzed out to Wasilla, and she emerged from her black SUV wearing a Carhartt jacket. The outfit was self-conscious. Alaska schtick. Not her thing. But she’d already recalibrated for an audience that wasn’t us. Then John McCain lost. She peaced-out on being governor. 

For many here, that was the end. 

It’s hard to keep track of what happened next. The internet Sarah-ploded. There was Fox News, reality television, the book, the steady stream of social-media snits, the house in Arizona, a family run-in with the cops and Bristol’s baby-mama drama.

You see the problem with this is that O'Malley seems to be basing most of her Palin-ology on her personal experiences with the then Governor who was seeking positive coverage.

It does not seem that O'Malley has done any real research into Palin's past nor that she has read any of the great books written about her including those written by Geoffrey Dunn, Joe McGinniss,  or even Frank Bailey.

Instead she bases it on her memories, which I find somewhat unreliable as O'Malley was also the reporter who swore up and down that she KNEW that Sarah Palin was indeed pregnant with Trig, and that there was no conspiracy: 

But, of course, there was no silence spiral. The journalists, including me, who covered Palin at the time believed she was pregnant because she was pregnant. Even before the announcement, she seemed to be putting on weight. She wore baggy jackets and scarves. Before the announcement, she acted nervous when photographers tried to take her picture. Later on, her face filled out. Her fingers swelled. She had a noticeable belly. And it wasn't made out of foam. 

Palin also ran all the time at the gym in Juneau. People I know saw her on the treadmill sweating in workout clothes. She had a belly. I repeat: she had a real pregnant belly. Are you going to tell me she was wearing a prosthetic abdomen on the treadmill?

For the record Palin has ALWAYS been a conniving opportunist who manipulated the weak willed around her and savaged her critics at every turn.

She used her feminine wiles to seduce male reporters and her girl power BS to win over the female journalists. And that seemed to work well here in Alaska, where let's face it journalism is not exactly breaking new ground.

However all of that came to a halt when a certain Katie Couric asked the innocuous question "What do you read?"

THAT was the beginning of the end, and THAT was when everybody started to see the true Sarah Palin.

Somebody it seems that Julia O'Malley never got the chance to meet.

Sarah Palin says we should always tell the truth. Wait, Sarah Palin said this?

Courtesy of Hypocritical Heidi's Facebook page:  

Today, try to remember it’s our responsibility to always tell the truth—including calling a sin a sin. ‪#‎SweetFreedom‬. 

Yeah well you first lady!

How about admitting that you don't even write your own books?

Or that your marriage is a sham?

Or that you NEVER go hunting, and only did so for your reality show?

A must read piece by the great Geoffrey Dunn on the whole Erick Erickson/Donald Trump/Sarah Palin/Bristol Palin/Nancy French kerfuffle.

Geoffrey Dunn and Gryphen.

This from a piece entitled "Cleavage to Nowhere: Trump, Breitbart, RedState, Fox News and Sarah Palin's Secret Emails" courtesy of HuffPo: 

Talk about a circular right-wing firing squad: Donald Trump; the marginalia at Breitbart Snooze; RedState's Erick Erikson & Co.; Sarah Palin; and her eldest daughter (aka Palin-Lite), are all going after each other in the ultra-rightwing blogosphere, and it's tempting to just sit back and watch the fur fly. Talk about some truly WWE material suitable for drive-in viewing. Where in the hell is Joe Bob Briggs when you need him? 

Let us see if it's possible to set the stage, which is a theatrical euphemism, because this conflagration is taking place in the middle of a cesspool of grand dimensions. If hypocrisy and deceit were bullshit, you could float the proverbial battleship in the muck. And the stench would spread all the way to Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Valley and back again. 

In the wake of what was clearly a sexist and misogynistic attack by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Fox News' Megyn Kelly -- is there really anyone who can argue otherwise? Really? -- Erikson courageously barred Trump from attending his annual RedState Gathering in Atlanta. Erickson was then unceremoniously attacked by that paragon of integrity and political insight, Palin-Liteweight, who charged Erickson with running a "demeaning fake photo" of her mother.

 Damn this picture is certainly getting a lot of attention lately.

I bet Palin wishes somebody would pay this much attention to her ACTUAL chesticles.

This entire article is awesome, start to finish, and Geoffrey has a great deal of fun pointing out how ridiculous this whole thing really is. And oh yes he also accurately identifies the fact that Bristol Palin's words, are not in fact Bristol Palin's words: 

The Real Palin, who, as I noted here in HuffPost with rather perfect prognostication, was avoiding the Kelly-Trump scuffle, sent out one her pups -- or more accurately one of her pups' ghost writers -- to enter the fray, so that there was no serious blowback on her. And as I accurately noted -- because the person I cited in Alaska had actually identified Palin-Lite as his source (I spared Lite that little embarassment the first time around), absolutely confirmed my speculation that there was no longer any love lost between Mama Grizzled and Faux News. How do we now know with certainty? Because Palin-Lite's ghost writer went after Fox's Chris Wallace and the Big Bad Wolf himself, Roger Ailes. 

Hell -- and Wasilla -- hath no fury like a Palin scorned.

Yes as I said you really need to read this whole thing, as it is chock full of delicious details that only  someone who spent as much time studying Palin-tology as Geoffrey Dunn has could possibly offer to the visitors to the Huffington Post.

Our friend Geoffrey Dunn finds Sarah Palin's silence in response to Donald Trump's misogyny shameful.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Alaska's quitter governor and the Tea Party's queen diva Sarah Palin uses her Facebook page to comment on all things political, including touting Donald Trump's candidacy for the presidency. But when it comes to Trump's outrageously sexist comments about her former colleague at Fox News, Megyn Kelly, Palin has remained shamefully silent about El Donaldo's latest round of misogyny. 

So much for Mama Grizzly solidarity with conservative women like Kelly, with whom Palin once declared: "We are the women's movement!" 

Trump, of course, has been nothing more than a serial sexist when it comes to his constant attacks on women: He has called women "ugly," "fat," "dogs," "slobs," "bimbos," "extremely unattractive," ad infinitum, all leading up to his allegation this weekend that Kelly was menstruating during the Republican presidential primary debate Thursday tonight. 

I guess in Palin World, that all makes you a "hero." So be it. But as virtually every major player in the current Republican line-up for president has called Trump on his latest remarks, Palin still hasn't brought herself to take the high road. Just before the Presidential debate last week, Palin gave yet another bizarre interview in which she said that she advised Trump [3:11]: 

"I've already told him. I said: Keep it up! America appreciates that you're calling it like you see it. He's telling a lot of truth. And really helping educate and lead the other candidates because they're going to have to step up their game and quit sounding like politicians." 

I wonder what "truth" she thinks he's now telling?

Geoffrey goes on to remind us all that nobody holds a grudge like Sarah Palin and that her recent firing from Fox News came on the heels of her rant against Megyn Kelly in response to her interview with the Duggar girls. 

You should of course read the entire post as Geoffrey makes several very good points in this article about why he thinks Palin is unable to bring herself to criticize Trump, whereas anybody else would be feeling the sting from her Facebook delivered venom.

My friend Geoffrey Dunn knows what's up with the Trump/Palin flirtation.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Donald Trump is many things -- a demagogue and a pompous blowhard, a braggart and a race baiter -- but in the end, he's nobody's fool, except perhaps his own. Thus, his recent lauding of Sarah Palin and his hiring of her former Chief of Staff reveal that Trump's campaign for the presidency is, ultimately, more of a circus act than it is a serious endeavor for the White House. If Trump were really serious, he'd be keeping the quitter governor at bay.

Geoffrey gives a number of examples to prove Trump's similarity to Palin, and that he is not serious about a run for the GOP nomination.

Ultimately he sums it up thusly:

Ever since her first announcement as John McCain's running mate in August of 2008, and the very brief honeymoon period she was graced with after, Palin's national favorability ratings have continued to plummet. Trump must know that he's facing the same ignoble outcome--the presidency will never be his. 

As with Palin, who hinted at a third-party run four years ago, Trump is flashing a similar wild card. It's a threat directed specifically at the Republican Party. He has the resources and, perhaps more significantly, the ego to do it. He will never win the Republican nomination for the presidency--bet any amount of money on that--but he might well cost them the White House in 2016 with a third-party run (and with La Palin riding shotgun). It will be a media circus like no other--yet another of their reality TV shows fueled by this country's sick celebrity fetishism. 

Trump's vicious attacks on John McCain--and Palin's implicit criticism of McCain as well--have illustrated that there is no low to which our modern-day Bonnie and Clyde will not stoop. A third-party run is not out of the question. They are both narcissists at heart--and the ongoing media attention they would receive is what really propels their egomaniacal political agenda.

Geoffrey understands Sarah Palin about as well as anybody, and much better than most.

He wrote the 2011 book "The Lies of Sarah Palin" and his research revealed things about the former governor of Alaska that ultimately proved to him, and anybody who read his book, that Palin was NEVER going to be a politician on a national level.

He still e-mails me occasionally and we commiserate on our shared battle scars and then share a laugh that this now humiliated woman was once considered by some as a viable candidate for the presidency.

Which is an indication of yet one more thing that she and Donald Trump will soon have in common.

Well it appears that there are other bloggers out there who do not think we should stop pursuing babygate either.

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:  

Rumors, innuendo and inconclusive photographs do not a true story make, but the fact of the matter is that seven years after the birth of Trig Paxson Van Palin, there is no proof that right-wing sweetheart Sarah Palin is his biological mother and evidence he may be her grandson. 

If you believe that I - or anyone else - has no business pursuing the question of whether John McCain's 2008 running mate put over an enormous hoax on the American public because the whole idea is so . . . well, yucky, then you need read no further. Besides which, a kid with disabilities having a home with a family that has plenty of dough is enough for many people who are averse to questioning Palin's serial evasions. 

But if you, like me, remain curious about the evasions concerning her alleged pregnancy and Trig's birth, as well as her unwillingness to provide any proof to tamp down rumors that she faked the birth of the Down syndrome child, then stick around. Palin still will not even release a copy of Trig's birth certificate although she hectored Barack Obama to release his. 

This story deserves to have legs because the former half-term Alaska governor turned author and reality show princess and most recently Tea Party carnival sideshow freak not only has not gone away. 

She continues to inject herself into national politics, having campaigned early on for the 2012 Republican president nomination until even she realized that her brand was tarnished despite a small but hard-core conservative constituency that continues to cling to her every statement as if they were Biblical missives.

Gee all of that sounds awfully familiar to all of us here on IM. Nice to hear it said someplace else though, isn't it?

C and L then links to a post over at Kiko's House, updated from 2011, which does an admirable job of laying out Palin's birth story, as well as all of the reasons that it does not hold water.

The author, Shaun Mullins, also quotes from Geoffrey Dunn, Joe McGinniss, and Andrew Sullivan as well.

There are also a few quotes from Professor Scharlott, mostly a refutation of the two Trig's theory that many of you may remember he did not exactly agree with me on. (Actually I think I proved my point with this post, but let's not open old wounds.)

Interestingly enough the updated post was put up on Saturday, which was the same day that I wrote this post wondering out loud if anybody cared about the story anymore.

I have no evidence that Mullins was responding directly to my post, but it does answer the central question.

Apparently yes, it certainly DOES matter to quite a number of people.

Well, I guess it's time to roll up my sleeves again and get to work.

Our friend Geoffrey Dunn eviscerates Sarah Palin for her shady and corrupt attack on Hillary Clinton over her e-mails.

Posing with Palin.

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

In widely reported Twitter and Facebook postings, Palin's bread-and-butter method for advancing the complex nuances of American democracy, Palin characterized the Clinton "email scandal" as "shady and corrupt." She followed those up with an oft-cited "opinion piece" on the Fox News website, in which Palin did what she does best -- she went into martyr mode and played the pity card. And, of course, she lied. 

"I know something about how annoying FOIA requests can be for public officials," she wrote. "After I returned home from the 2008 vice presidential campaign, the state of Alaska was flooded with innumerable FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests to see literally every single email I ever wrote while governor." 

She went on: 

"The only emails redacted were the very few that were protected by attorney/client privilege -- a determination agreed upon by my lawyers and the Attorney General's office who reviewed them... Because nothing was kept secret in any way. Everything was done in the most transparent way possible." 

What a crock. An absolute crock. But not once in reporting on the Clinton-Palin dustup did the national media challenge Palin on these utterly duplicitous renditions of what happened during her tenure in Alaska. (Kendall Breitman's shamefully uncritical piece in Politico provides an excellent case in point). In fact, the process of obtaining access to Palin's emails lasted nearly a half-decade, and Palin's personal lawyers and her hand-picked attorney general did everything in their power to keep those emails from ever seeing the light of day. In the end, many Palin emails and passages from emails were redacted or withheld for reasons that had nothing to do with "attorney-client privilege" (she claimed "executive privilege," "deliberative process," "personal privilege," and "privacy," on almost all of them). Others were destroyed. It's all simply another Palin lie.

Geoffrey goes on to take Palin's argument about her "transparency" point by point, and quite easily reveals that she is hip deep in her own bullshit.

As always it is a well written article and I urge all of you to click the link and give it a read.

Geoffrey Dunn, author of "The Lies of Sarah Palin," points out that the lies have not stopped coming.

Courtesy of HuffPo:

Palin's latest deception on Fox News--and it's a doozy of grand proportions, executed with an assist from her resident Fox sycophant Greta Van Susteren--is that she was "banned" from bringing up both Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright by the "elitists" and the "brainiacs in the GOP machine" running John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. 

That's a whopper. But of course Van Susteren and the rest of the mainstream media who have reported on Palin's comments let her assertion go by unchallenged. 

In fact--as was widely reported during the first week in October of 2008--Palin made vicious remarks about Obama and his relationship with Ayers at a campaign event in Engelwood, Colorado. There, she uttered one of the signature slogans of her ill-fated candidacy when she charged Obama with "pallin' around with terrorists" and asserted that Obama wasn't "a man who sees America like you and I see America." 

It was a demagogic allegation of the worst sort, one that created sound bites played widely by news stations across the country. And, as I learned during research for my book, The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power, the Ayers attack was in fact approved by McCain senior advisors trying to reverse Palin's descending trajectory with the American electorate in the aftermath of her disastrous and widely mocked interview with Katie Couric a few weeks earlier in the campaign. 

It was a media debacle so indelibly scorched into the American psyche that Palin has never recovered from it. Ever. Her popularity with the American electorate has been in a downward spiral ever since. 

Palin did rant during the campaign about Ayers and Obama. And she has continued to hurl venom and invective at Obama ever since, with a fervor that borders on the obsessive.

So she lies again. What a surprise.

And the interesting thing about this one is that neither John McCain nor his campaign staff is going to correct Palin about the Bill Ayers thing and take responsibility for sending her out with those talking points.

They were smart enough to realize how damaging they were, Palin is not. Even today.

In her weekend tirade on Fox, Palin asserted that McCain's advisors were "afraid that the media would eat us alive if we brought up these things." Afraid? She did bring them up--and the response, not only from the media, but from Americans across the country was universally condemnatory. It marked a critical juncture in the campaign. 

So while Palin goes around ranting that the McCain campaign "banned" her from talking about both he and Jeremiah Wright, they look reasonable, and she, well she looks crazy.

Palin-bot FINALLY allows the scales to fall from her eyes. I swear these are the slowest people on the planet!

From TownHall:  

You are beginning to worry me. I am afraid you are losing touch with the people of whom your fame is based. (You cannot "lose touch" with people you never gave a shit about in the first place.) I, after all, was one of your biggest supporters once. I am thrilled that you get invitations to go to NBA games, that you display your Chick-fil-A shirt, and that you go and support your daughter and her celebrity friends on Dancing with the Stars. 

But at CPAC last week you made a rush for the exits. After you gave an inspiring speech where you said to a thrilled audience, “At a time when our country is desperate for leadership, we get instead a permanent campaign“. Instead of coming out and shaking the hands of those who you inspire, you quickly left the building without even a second glance. (What? She wants Palin to mingle with the little people? Boy does she not know this woman very well!)


You called out the liberal media as being unashamed, so at least you took notice of them. Not so for those of us on the right who had hoped that the woman from Wasilla, Alaska might understand our plight and give us a chance to engage one of the top names in the movement. (Yeah, couldn't you insult us a little too? At least give us something!)


We were, to put it bluntly, disappointed. And while I wish this was a solo occurrence, unfortunately this seems to be your pattern. (Gee, ya think?)


I know we in the Tea Party movement don’t throw the best parties or live the most glamorous lives, but we are the ones who faithfully donated to the McCain campaign once you joined the ticket. We are the ones who defended you publicly when the liberal media made fun of you and when your own campaign advisors turned on you. We are the ones who add you and your family to our prayers every night at bedtime. (And don't you feel stupid now?)


Yet it seems those in Hollywood who have made their money making you the butt of their jokes get more of your attention than the movement you helped inspire. 

As a working mother in political journalism, I always looked to your journey as a source of inspiration. (Boy are there a couple of book THIS woman needs to read!) It was a testament to the fact that a woman can use her professional talents and not let her family suffer. The other side wants to make female conservatives feel like we are put in binders and that our party doesn’t encourage women to grow in our careers. (I'm just going to let this part go. Too easy.)


Whether it is Dr. Rice, Rep Bachmann, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and legions of others, time and time again conservative women prove this statement to be false. But what makes us different is that women on our side are not afraid to come off the stage and get involved with the people they claim to represent and champion. 

Our party does not need another “celebrity.” One of the best attributes of today’s Republicans is that we do not hide behind the curtain and only come out to chat when there is a teleprompter present. The American conservative wants an honest and humble spokesman unafraid to mill about with real people, to listen.

" The American conservative wants an honest and humble spokesman unafraid to mill about with real people, to listen?" Boy were they barking up the wrong tree!

Okay clearly this poor woman is still a moron. But at least she is a moron that has finally recognized that the "Liberal Left" has been right about Sarah Palin all along.

Boy THAT must burn her ass!

My friend Geoffrey Dunn believes that Sarah Palin's attack on Karl Rove at CPAC is personal.

Geoffrey wrote this earlier over at HuffPo concerning Palin's not so veiled reference to Karl Rove as the "architect "of the Republican's most recent failed campaigns:

According to my sources in south-central Alaska with direct links to the Palin family, Palin now has a personal vendetta against Rove. She blames Rove not only for her rather unceremonious departure from Fox News, but for her embarrassing bid for the presidency in 2012. In a widely cited interview in 2010 with Great Britain's Daily Telegraph, Rove suggested that Palin lacked the level of "gravitas" required to hold national office. It was a stinging rebuke of Palin aimed at GOP powerbrokers. 

Nobody holds a grudge like Sarah Palin. Her memoir, Going Rogue, is a handbook on personal vengeance. She's not going to let it go. 

Indeed, Palin kept gnawing the same old bone at CPAC, winding her way back to a constant meme. And as she did, she ramped up her attack. "Now is time to furlough the consultants and tune out the pollsters," she admonished. "If we truly know what we believe, we don't need professionals [read Rove] to tell us." 

Palin was there to stick the knife in Rove's "political bubble," as she dubbed it. "The last thing we need," she proclaimed, "is Washington, D.C., vetting our candidates." 

And just so there was no mistaking who she was talking about, Palin snidely invoked George W. Bush's nickname for the Texas-based strategist -- "The Architect" -- taunting Rove and his associates to "head on back to the great Lone Star State" and to "buck up and run" for office. "I hope they give themselves a discount on their consulting services," she intoned derisively, the cynicism dripping from her lips. 

Palin delighted in attacking Rove at the pocketbook. It's her favorite target -- because it's how she herself calculates her own worth. "Get over yourself," she bellowed, with an emphasis on the singular. "It's not about you." 

It was classic Palin. Only this time around, her appearance at CPAC served to remind Americans from across the political spectrum just how far Palin has fallen. She is a sad and emaciated caricature of the once-bright star that emerged on the Republican political horizon in the summer of 2008. She's more vapid, more shallow, more narcissistic, more bitter, more insignificant, more delusional, and, almost impossibly, more mean spirited than ever before. 

What a difference half-of-a-decade makes.

Of course Geoffrey is right, there may be NOBODY on earth who holds a grudge like Sarah Palin. And if Palin truly does blame Rove for her departure from Fox (Though we have evidence that Roger Ailes soured on her well before Rove spoke out against her,) then it does not appear that this will go away anytime soon.

In fact at this point it seems that all she has left to sustain her is her hatred, and spitefulness toward others. However, considering how wasted away she looked at the convention, it appears that may NOT be enough to keep her going indefinitely.

Geoffrey had much more of interest in this post, so go ahead and click the link at the top to read the rest.

"The Cremation of Sarah Palin." I think my friend Geoffrey Dunn has outdone himself.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun 
By politicians who moil for graft; 
The Juneau jails have their secret tales 
That would make you burn in the ass; 
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, 
And heard every wolf a wailin', 
But none hit the soul, as those two recent polls, 
And the cremation of Sarah Palin. 

Now Sarah Palin was from Wasilla, 
Where methamphetamine runs and flows. 
Why she left Lake Lucille for an outside thrill, 
The good God only knows. 
She was always ambitious, if a little oblivious, 
New York and Hollywood cast their spell; 
Though she lied through her teeth and padded bra underneath, 
That "she'd soon rather live in hell." 

Near Valentine's Day, Todd was grinding his way 
Over the Iron Dog Trail. 
Talk of your cold! Through her Arctic Cat parka's fold, 
It stabbed like a driven nail. 
The only things worse, was listening to her 
When the governorship she was bailin'. 
It was absolutely a curse, and politically perverse, 
To hear the whining of one Sarah Palin. 

Only last month, came a chilling cold front, 
As the Harper and Public Policy polls showed quite clearly, 
Alaskans had had their fill of the Wasilla shrill, 
And no longer loved her so dearly. 
So she turned to Todd, seated right next to God, 
sayin' : "I think I'll cash in with Fox; 
And if I do, I'm pleading that you Free me from Seward's Ice Box." 

On her political deathbead, with Begich ahead, 
Even Hilary trounced her in 2016. 
"It's the cursèd political cold, and it's got right hold, 
'Til I'm chilled clean through to the spleen. 
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread 
Of being ignored that pains; So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, 
You'll cremate my political remains." 

A gal's last need is a thing to heed, 
So Todd swore he would not fail; 
And with her makeup gone, at the streak of dawn; 
But God! she looked ghastly pale. 
She screeched at Todd, and those who blog, 
Raving about days past on the campaign trail in...; 
But come nightfall, a political corpse was all, 
That was left of one Sarah Palin. 

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, 
And Todd hurried on, guilt-ridden, 
With a corpse half hid that he couldn't get rid, 
Because of his promise given; 
It was lashed to the Cat, and it seemed to blat: 
"You may tax your brawn and few brains, 
But you promised true, and it's up to you 
To cremate these last political remains." 

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, 
And the trail has its own stern code. 
As I was a witness, and detested her shallowness, 
In my heart how I cursed poor Todd's load. 
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, 
With Iron Men round in a ring, 
They howled out their woes to the homeless snows-- 
 O God! how I loathed the thing. 

And every day that quiet clay 
Seemed to heavy and heavier grow; 
And on we went, though the machines were spent, 
And the meth was getting low; 
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, 
But I swore I would not give in; 
And we'd often sing to the hateful thing, 
And it hearkened with a grin. 

Then Todd heard the shrill of Lake Lucille, 
And a derelict there lay; 
It was jammed in the ice, but he saw in it twice 
A float plane called the "Alice May." 
And he looked at it, and he thought for a bit, 
And then glanced at his frozen chum; 
"Alas, here," said he, with some hidden glee, 
"Is my cre-ma-tor-eum." 

Some planks he tore from the cabin floor, 
And I watched as he lit the pyre; 
Some gas he found that was laying around, 
And he poured the fuel ever higher; 
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared-- 
Such a blaze you seldom see blazin,' 
As Ailes, Schmidt and Rove added fuel to the stove, 
They stuffed in poor Sarah Palin. 

Then I made for a hill, so I could witness the thrill, 
I confess my heart started to glow; 
And Alaskans smiled, her record reviled, 
Arctic winds began to blow. 
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled, 
Down my cheeks and I don't know why; 
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak 
Went streaking across the midnight sky. 

I do not know how long in the snow 
I wrestled with a grisly fear; 
But the stars came out and they danced about 
Ere again I ventured near; 
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: 
"I'll just take a peep inside. 
I guess she's cooked, and it's time I looked..." 
Then the door I opened wide. 

And there sat the Quitter, typing a Twitter, 
In the heart of the furnace roar; 
And she wore that sneer the country did fear, 
Screeching: "Shut that flippin' door. 
It's fine in here, but let's face it, don't grace it, 
In Alaska all I do is smoke crack; 
So I'm leaving Wasill' and Lake Lucille 
And giving a speech at CPAC." 

There are strange things done in the midnight sun 
By politicians who moil for graft; 
The Juneau jails have their secret tales 
That would make you burn in the ass; 
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, 
And heard every wolf a wailin', 
But none hit the soul, as those two recent polls, 
And the cremation of Sarah Palin. 

God that was brilliant! This was too good to simply sample here so I cut and pasted the whole poem, I don't think Geoffrey would mind, however I would appreciate it if you could click this link to HuffPo, so that they get the traffic as this was originally posted by Geoffrey over there.


That is good blogging etiquette, don'tcha know?

(By the way in the HuffPo version Geoffrey also provides links to some of his more scandalous claims in the poem.)

As President Obama attends to the suffering of those devastated by Hurricane Sandy, Sarah Palin decides it is the appropriate time to go on the attack.

Click constipated expression to play video.

I am actually only going to be able to post about a portion of this vicious attack on our President as he reaches out to assist Americans in dire need. The absolutely disgusting things said about Obama during these six minutes made it almost impossible for me to unclench my fists long enough to type out a response.

And before I start let me just say, "Fuck Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin!" There I feel a little better now.

This middle school nastiness starts off with Hannity playing clips of the President, and the devastation from Hurricane Sandy, followed by totally ludicrous and false charges that the President is treating this as nothing more than a "photo op" for political purposes.

At one point Hannity actually criticizes the President for the fact that FOUR DAYS after this storm, which flooded miles of tunnels and literally caused the Con-Ed power station to explode into a fireball, there are still places without power. Seriously?

He also claims that you can't see any FEMA help anywhere.

Yeah anywhere on Fox News that is! If you turn to other ACTUAL news stations you can see trucks arriving and people being helped all over the place.

Then he asks the worst Governor in Alaska history to take her shot as well and this was her incredibly disgusting and hypocritical response:

"So he got his photo ops out of that, unfortunately, because then he got to jet off, and you know here he goes again to party in Vegas with Jay Z, and..uh..quite unfortunate because, as you say Sean, people are truly suffering, and this isn't a time for politics, and I think that it's quite a shame that President Obama chose to seize THE opportunity, along with the complicit lapdogs in the media to make it a political statement."

Hang on I have to bang my head for a second.

Okay, back now. Let's see where do I even start?

For one thing right now the President is being lauded by virtually EVERYBODY who does not get their news solely from Fox for his quick and competent response to this disaster. For another thing, what kind of moron would ask freaking SARAH PALIN to weigh in on the appropriate response to a weather disaster that endangers human life?

Perhaps Hannity does not remember Emmonak? Or perhaps even more likely, Fox News never reported on what happened in that Alaskan community almost four years ago now on Sarah Palin's watch.

Here let me remind everybody.

In 2009 when the village of Emmonak, and other surrounding villages, found themselves without heating oil for their houses and on the verge of starvation, an Emmonak elder, Nick Tucker, reached out to Sarah Palin repeatedly for help.

When he received no answer he went public and had a letter published in the Bristol Bay Times outlining the dire nature of their situation. Four days later, after being publicly embarrassed by the Alaska bloggers and progressive community, she finally issued a less than satisfying response.

And then it was actually a whole month later, after the crisis had virtually ended, that she herself went out into the rural villages to hand out cookies as part of a photo op with Franklin Graham.

The kicker here is that Palin took her cookies and supplies to Russian Mission, which was NOT one the villages that had been asking for help. This forced Nick Tucker to travel all the way to Russian Mission to finally tell his governor face to face how much his people had been suffering.

Palin of course snubbed him and never did anything to address his concerns.

So essentially she "got her photo op" and then "jetted off."

And THIS is who Fox News brings in to criticize the President's response to this incredible catastrophe in the nation's largest community?

Let me just state again, for the record, "Fuck Sean Hannity and fuck Sarah Palin."

P.S. By the way, speaking of political opportunism, our friend Geoffrey Dunn has a great piece up over at HuffPo on Palin's last minute donation to Mitt Romney's failed campaign for the presidency.

You know I was actually thinking that perhaps Mitt Romney was a more horrible example of a human being than was Sarah Palin, but this interview reminded me that perhaps NOBODY will ever be able to take that title away from her. Nasty, nasty woman!

The Schaeffer Cox/Bill Fulton/Sarah Palin connection goes mainstream! Update!

"I'm sorry, Schaeffer who? Oh crap!"

As many of you probably remember I wondered in my Friday post if " the court transcripts will be enough to shake some reporters awake to the now much more obvious connections between the AIP, the sovereign citizens moment, the militias, and our half term ex-Governor Sarah Palin?"

Well that question has been answered by none other than our good friend Geoffrey Dunn.

Just take a look at this courtesy of the Geoffrey Dunn over at the Huffington Post:

According to sworn testimony Thursday during federal court proceedings in Alaska, two close associates of former Governor Sarah Palin -- Joe Miller, a staunch political ally of Palin's whom she supported in his failed bid for the U.S. Senate; and Palin's former director of boards and commissions Frank Bailey, more commonly known in Alaska as Palin's "hatchet man" -- were responsible for introducing FBI Informant William "Drop Zone" Fulton to Schaeffer Cox, the leader of the so-called Alaska Peacekeeper Militia. 

The surreptitious meeting between Fulton, Cox and Palin's associates took place a scant six months before Palin was selected by John McCain to serve as his running mate on the GOP ticket. Cox, a supporter of Palin's, was then a Republican candidate for the Alaska House of Representatives, District 7. He finished with 36 percent of the votes. 

Bailey makes no mention of this extraordinary meeting with Cox and Fulton in his not-so-tell-all book, Blind Allegiance. Nor does he address his, Miller's and Frye's efforts to oust Ruedrich at the convention. It's yet another Bailey cover-up. 

In fact, Palin had longtime ties to the right-wing, anti-government fringes of Alaska politics. Despite her duplicities to the contrary, Palin's husband, Todd, had on three separate occasions registered as a member of the Alaska Independence Party, which called, at the time, for the secession of Alaska from the Union. Palin also produced a glowing video on behalf of the AIP welcoming them to Fairbanks for their statewide convention earlier that year. 

In 2009, for my book, The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind her Relentless Quest for Power, I interviewed Mark Chryson, chairman of the AIP from 1995 to 2002, who talked about the various ways his movement supported Palin during her tenure as mayor of Wasilla (he claims Palin attended the AIP convention in 1994.) One former militia member I interviewed in Talkeetna with direct links to Cox said that the Palins -- "especially Todd" -- were "sympathetic to our cause." That Palin and her minions would associate with Cox -- and seek out his counsel for political "strategy" at a time when she was being considered as a potential vice-presidential nominee -- is further reflection not only of her fringe political views but also of her warped political judgment.

Man after waiting all of this time with that secret rattling around in my head I cannot tell you how gratifying it is to see it somewhere else besides on my blog, Mudflats, and a few other places around the internet.

I know the Huffington Post is not exactly the New York Times, but it IS read by journalists all across the country and hopefully more than a few of them will recognize the enormity of this story and start their own investigations.

P.S. Please click the link at the top and visit HuffPo and help this story get the attention it deserves. If it makes it to the front page that might REALLY push it along.

Update: The story is starting to spread. Finally.

Geoffrey Dunn takes Oxford historian to school concerning idea that Sarah Palin would "have nomination sewn up by now."

I know that many of you read this ridiculous piece of fantasy written by CNN contributor Timothy Stanley, because I received links to it for about three days running.

I personally chose to ignore it because I actually felt it was simply too batshit crazy to even address.

However my friend Geoffrey Dunn simply could not resist giving this numbskull a good old fashioned dressing down.  And he did such a good job that I thought it deserved to be shared with all of you:

Palin, Mr. Stanley argues, "has always been a classy, well-choreographed performer." Apparently he doesn't recall that Palin's political operatives placed images of bulls-eye targets on Congressional seats during the 2010 election, and then, in the aftermath of the violent assassination attempt on Gabriel Giffords, Palin turned herself into a victim during a morally obscene response to the massacre, claiming that she had been a casualty of "blood libel" by "journalists and pundits." Classy she has not been. 

Mr. Stanley contends that Palin, unlike Santorum, would have never responded "bullshit" to a question posed by a reporter--but when asked about Santorum's vulgar response, Palin strongly defended it, asserting that "he and the other candidates, all of them, they need to do more of this." Palin has chastised Obama for lacking "cajones" and has further asserted that certain reporters for Politico were "impotent and limp." 

I'm not sure whom Mr. Stanley thinks he's fooling. 

As for her match-up with the GOP frontrunner, Mr. Stanley contends that "Palin would have been a far more effective anti-Romney candidate because her strengths accentuated Romney's weaknesses." That Palin is a bigger draw on the hustings goes without saying. So is Lady Gaga. But Romney has ground out an all-but-certain victory in the GOP primary by his steady performances in the debates, strong organizational skills, and a formidable fundraising ability--all of which would have made mincemeat out of Palin. 

The fact of the matter is that while a Palin candidacy certainly would have roused her narrow base--and generated considerable media coverage--she would have stumbled, almost with certainty, through the early primaries, and then faltered like all the rest of the angry mob before Super Tuesday. She possessed none of the grassroots organization required in Iowa (she had only a single operative on the ground); she is despised in New Hampshire (she alienated many GOP operatives during her visit to the Granite State in 2008); and her own protégée in South Carolina, Nikki Haley, came out early for Romney. 

Moreover, Palin's fundraising efforts tanked. A year ago, she had raised the most money of any potential candidates in the GOP field. But in the aftermath of her discordant response to the tragedy in Tucson, contributions to her political action committee, SarahPAC, slowed to a trickle. During the past six months SarahPAC has raised less than half of what it raised during the same time period a year earlier. 

But the real telltale numbers regarding Palin are her negative favorability ratings nationally. Had Stanley understood the political calculus of realpolitik, he'd grasp how facetious his argument really is. Ever since her disastrous Couric interview--her inability to name newspapers that she read was only the beginning of her problems-- Palin's favorability rating has trended precipitously downward. A CBS poll conducted last fall, right before Palin announced her decision not to run, showed that her favorability rating among all voters nationwide had sunk to 21 percent. 

Secured the nomination? That's a joke. Polling even with Barack Obama? Get serious. Anyone who's ever been involved in a real campaign knows those are numbers that cannot be overcome by any candidate.

That is but a mere portion of Dunn's brilliant  dismantling of this lightweight Palin Kool-aid drinkers argument.  To read the rest, and I strongly suggest that you do, please click here.

I am really glad to see Geoffrey back in the business of revealing Sarah Palin lies, and lies told on Palin's behalf. He is, without a doubt, one of the best, and he always makes sure to back up his writing with solid reporting and a truckload of facts.

Something I think a certain Mr. Stanley would do well to emulate.

Today Sarah Palin may have little love for Mitt Romney, but there was a time when they worked hand in hand to break Alaska campaign laws together.

Courtesy of my friend Geoffrey Dunn, and posted over at the Huffington Post:

During the final weeks of her campaign in September of 2006, Palin was the beneficiary of a $107,000 television advertisement campaign paid for and produced by the RGA. The Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) later fined the RGA (with Romney at the helm) $26,600 for two separate activities related to Palin's gubernatorial campaign and warned that the fine could have been levied as high as $6 million. The fines levied by APOC against the RGA were for distributing campaign mailers within 30 days of the election, and because television advertisements the RGA produced featuring Palin were obviously broadcast for partisan purposes. 

The RGA television ads went negative on Palin's chief opponent in the race, former Democratic governor Tony Knowles. One of them featured Knowles walking backwards in slow motion. The ad also contained footage of Palin jauntily leaving an Anchorage hotel that clearly looked staged--and that's because it apparently was, according to Palin's former director of boards and commissions, Frank Bailey, who worked closely with her on the campaign. 

Such outside advertising campaigns are common, but Alaska election law strictly requires that there be no "coordination" between the candidate and their campaign with the so-called "527 group" organizing and producing the ads. 

Both Palin and Romney escaped any personal accountability for the questionable activities of their respective organizations. But leaked emails from the Palin campaign reveal that there was, in fact, coordination between Palin's campaign, Romney and the RGA--which is illegal under Alaska campaign laws--though in respect to the issue of "coordination," APOC dismissed the complaint and issued no sanctions. 

Geoffrey has done a great job of using Palin's own newly released e-mails to prove that Palin did indeed coordinate with Romney, who was then chairmen of the Republican Governor's Association, to break Alaska campaign laws in order to defeat Tony Knowles.

The e-mails, which the Palin administration refused to share with APOC, leave little doubt that Palin should have suffered some very serious legal ramifications at the time. Sadly for those of us who want justice the statue of limitations has now run out.

And of course today Palin is no REAL threat in the world of politics. What was it that Sam Donaldson said?

"I don't speak ill of the dead."

However Mitt Romney is still quite relevant today, and might very well be the Republican candidate to face off against the President in November. So this flouting of Alaska campaign laws is yet another black mark against the candidate, who I heard described today as somebody seemingly "without a moral compass" and a person willing to "go to any means in order to move his agenda forward."

In fact Palin and Romney are two of a kind when it comes to ignoring the law in order to do whatever they damn well please to achieve their goals.  Perhaps one of the reasons that the Grizzled Mama has such obvious disdain for "Captain Mormon Underpants" is because looking at him reminds her too much of the ugliness she sees looking back at her from the mirror.

But then again it might simply be that he is about to get the nomination that she covets with all of her heart, yet realizes she is too unqualified and ignorant to ever attain.

My take on the HBO film Game Change.

Palin, and her pimp husband, hanging out with the Nascar crowd, who would much rather watch cars drive in a circle than watch a riveting political drama on HBO.

Now before I start let me just say that there are a LOT of excellent reviews already out there for everybody to read.

Because of that fact I do not feel that I need to talk about certain aspects of the film that have already been adequately covered by others.

However I WILL join all of the other reviewers in expressing my great admiration for the job that Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris, Sarah Paulson and others did in bringing this story to life. I cannot tell you how many times chills ran up my back while watching this, or how many times I was convinced that Moore actually WAS Sarah Palin.

In many ways Moore embodied the character of Sarah Palin in a way that perhaps NOBODY else could have. For instance early in the film Moore started demonstrating these facial expressions that were extraordinary in the how close they were to Palin's actual expressions, many of which we have seen in moments when she was not aware that she was being filmed, or had lost control of her demeanor and her cheery facade melted away to reveal her true self, for just a moment or two.

But there was one expression that I cannot figure out how Moore was able to mimic, because I don't think it has been captured on camera as of yet. It is the look that Palin gets when she begins to realize that the person she is talking to sees through her bullshit.

I recognized it because I have seen it first hand.

That day back in January of 2009 right after Dennis and I finished interviewing Palin, she apparently started to realize that I was more than simply a friend helping Dennis hold the microphone, and this look of total paranoia began to creep across her face.  As many of you undoubtedly remember that paranoia inspired her to race across a basketball court full of teenagers in order to pursue us out of the AT&T Sports Center and ultimately write down my license plate number.

I don't believe I have ever seen that look on her face at any other time except for that one. Until last night that is, when I saw the EXACT same look on Julianne Moore's face as her character began to realize that Nicole Wallace, as played by Sarah Paulson, was beginning to suspect that she was a fraud. or worse, mentally unhinged.

If you go back and watch the movie again you will see that same psychotic look of extreme paranoia that Palin gets when she realizes somebody has seen behind the carefully draped curtain and that she has been revealed, warts and all. How Moore was able to capture that look I have no idea, but there it was nonetheless.

Another aspect of the film that I found very compelling was the portion where the "Ice Queen" made her appearance.  This is another part of Palin's character that is unrecognizable to most people who know of Palin, but which was well documented in Joe McGinniss and Frank Bailey's books, and which is well know to the people who worked for her up in Alaska.

Palin by most accounts can be very engaging, and she has that certain "something," but what is less known is that when you fall out of favor with her you essentially cease to exist, and any further interactions with her can feel as frigid as the coldest of Alaskan nights.

The Wallace character  definitely felt that sting, as did Schmidt, and I am sure a number of other staff members not represented in the movie.

In some ways the catatonic state she slipped into in the film is an offshoot of that tactic.  Essentially if she cannot freeze out an individual that is no longer kissing her ass as she so desires, because instead she is upset with a group which cannot receive such as subtle message, (Like the group of advisers in the film trying to prep her for her debate), she then turns inward and closes herself off instead.

In Alaska that took the form of going home early and hiding in Wasilla, when she was overwhelmed.  In the film she simply became uncommunicative until they brought her children down from Alaska for her to hide behind.

These may seem like very small details, but they go a very long way toward really revealing the complexities of Palin's psyche, which, as should be clear to anyone who watched the movie, is in need of an immediate therapeutic intervention.

My last observation is how Moore's Sarah Palin reacted to the arrival of Levi Johnston on the campaign trail.  Her aloofness and the look of sheer hatred that blazed from her eyes was quite withering and must have made Levi feel extraordinarily unwelcome.  All of which is very much how I believed it went down, despite the show of tenderness Palin displayed for the benefit of the cameras

Yes, she would put up Levi for the time being, but when she no longer needed him, it would be HIS turn to meet the "Ice Queen." And of course her protege, the "Ice Princess" who would some day make Mommy very proud by punishing Levi, and Levi's family, with his very own son.

Well those were my observations, please feel free to agree, or disagree, or even add your own reviews as you see fit. And let me urge you, if you have not yet seen the film, to watch it.  I cannot imagine ANYBODY, who is not a Palin-bot of course, being disappointed in the movie.

Speaking of reviews here is Geoffrey Dunn's very interesting take on the film over at the Huffington Post.

Tomorrow's "Game Change" day! And in celebration I present a special interview with author Geoffrey Dunn.

Like many of you I have been hearing ALL kinds of contradictory information about the movie Game Change.

Some have said it eviscerates Sarah Palin, while others claim that it is sympathetic toward her and will make people feel sorry for her. 

Her people have been attacking the film, which convinced me that THEY at least think it is bad for Sarah, but then Julianne Moore has repeatedly stated that she felt sympathy for the person who she was asked to portray, which made me worry that she would fail to adequately represent the mean girl side of Palin that most of us have come to know all too well.

All in all it left me somewhat confused.

Then I received an e-mail from my friend Geoffrey Dunn, author of the book "The Lies of Sarah Palin. The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power," suggesting that we do an interview, since HE had already seen the movie.

Seven seconds.  That's how long it took me to type out my response, "You betcha!"

Here is that interview:

Immoral Minority: Geoffrey, it seemed you took a sabbatical from writing about Palin after your book, "The Lies of Sarah Palin" was published. It is very nice to see you back over at the Huffington Post these days, is this in response to the increased interest in Palin and the movie "Game Change," or were you always planning on taking a break and then jumping back in at a later time?

Geoffrey Dunn: With Palin, as you know Jesse, there are no plans [laughter]. And after the publication of my book I felt a need to get away from that subject for a while. I think that I wrote two really important pieces about Palin in the last six months. One for the Anchorage Press called “Palin Redivivus” about problems with Frank Bailey’s book. And another for Firedog Lake entitled “Blood In the Snow” about the shameful attack on Joe McGinniss by Janet Maslin of the New York Times . Covering Palin is a bit like swimming in a cesspool—there’s no way to avoid the stink. So I took a long shower. But with the renewed focus on Palin because of Game Change , I felt as though I needed to get back into the fray. Huffington gives me a much huger audience than anywhere else. They feature my work. And with all the pushback from Palin & Co. against Game Change (the movie), I felt that I needed to come to its defense in terms of its portrayal of Palin as an extremely disruptive force on the campaign. And I will be writing several more pieces about Palin, Game Change and some of the larger issues this all raises about what I am calling “the pornography of American politics.”

IM: There has been much talk that the HBO movie Game Change might in fact portray Sarah Palin as more of a tragic figure, or garner sympathy from the audience for how she was treated by the McCain campaign. What are your thoughts on that possibility?

Dunn: Superb read on your part. But I’ve now watched Game Change twice. One of its missteps is depicting Palin as a “victim,” which of course she was not. At best she is a victim of her own psychological pathologies and delusions. And Bristol’s and Todd’s depictions will be a hoot to anyone who has ever encountered their energy in Alaska. I will be telling viewers to re-watch that footage of the family in Homer while they were filming Palin’s unreality show or the footage of Todd and Sarah at the airport in Valdez. But let me tell you, Julianne Moore absolutely inhabits Palin — and she has her crazy-angry-delusional persona down to perfection. It took me only a few blinks of an eye to fall into her character, and like you, I’ve watched far too much real Sarah Palin footage to be healthy. But Moore captures Palin for what you and I know her to be—a dysfunctional, mean-spirited woman driven by anger and revenge who is out only for herself. That is the ultimate portrait of Sarah Palin that emerges from Game Change . It’s devastating.

IM: Is there anything that you uncovered during your research for your book that you had hoped would make it into the movie?

Dunn: Most of what I uncovered during my research for the book made it into the movie, especially about Palin’s dysfunction and duplicity and betrayal. What the film really misses the mark on is all the prelude to Palin’s selection. It makes it seem as though Palin was discovered by McCain advisors while Googling for a woman candidate. That’s such a distortion of reality that I will focus some attention in the next few weeks responding to that narrative. Sarah Palin did not fall out of the sky. She was angling for that nomination from the moment she was elected Governor of Alaska. And there were right-wingers like Bill Kristol pushing her candidacy. In June of 2008 Kristol said knowingly twice, on Fox News, that Palin was going to get the nod. People inside the McCain camp—most notably Rick Davis—had their eyes on her for a long time. I tell this story in detail in my book, far more than Game Change (either the book or film), and if readers are interested in this issue I strongly suggest that they read my section of the book that deals with this vetting and selection process.

IM: We know how Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace view Sarah Palin these days, however many others who participated in the McCain campaign have remained relatively silent. Why do you believe that is?

Dunn: I mean, Nicolle Wallace described Palin as “cuckoo for Coco Puffs.” We know how she feels. Schmidt is far more careful, but he has clearly stated Palin is “unfit for the presidency.” Some of those other McCain operatives, like Rick Davis, are still closely associated with John McCain. Other’s like Jason Recher are still on Palin’s payroll. And the others are simply afraid to go on the record. I spoke to several people from the McCain campaign who are afraid of Palin. As you know, Palin’s minions are a vicious lot. They have gone after Schmidt. And they will go after Game Change . But I think the film will solidify in the public’s mind how dangerous and irresponsible the Palin selection really was. That’s why the Palin pushback has been so hard. This film will seriously push down Palin’s favorability ratings even further—and they are already astonishingly low.

IM: From what I can glean from the trailers for Game Change it appears that most of the responsibility for the choosing of Sarah Palin is laid at the feet of Steve Schmidt. Do you believe this is accurate? Or even fair?

Dunn: Rick Davis was in charge of selecting and vetting the VP process. He did a shitty job. And to be fair to everyone, McCain wanted Lieberman. But when the word got out they were going with Lieberman (blame Lindsay Graham for that), the rightwing nutbags who adore Palin threatened to walk out of the convention. So Lieberman was viewed as a fool’s move. That left Mitt Romney (who McCain disliked), Tim Pawlenty (who has the charisma of cardboard), and Palin (who they knew nothing about). They wanted a woman—a “game changer”—so they went with door Number Three. They initially got a huge boost and then a huge crash with Palin. Could they have won with either of the other two? Who knows? With Palin? Never. Never ever. She’s poison to any campaign. Just ask Joe Miller. Anyway, the “fault” if you will for the selection of Palin falls squarely on the shoulders on Rick Davis. The Davis character is minimized in the film, but remember Davis was busted during the campaign for being a lobbyist for Freddie Mac? Sound familiar? Anyway, Schmidt takes the fall for this and it really is unfair to him. But he’s a big boy and he will survive and thrive. He has as much integrity as anyone I’ve ever met, inside or outside of politics. The dramatic arc of Game Change is about him confronting his conscience re Palin. He knows he helped to create a monster on the landscape of American politics. 

IM: Since you have already seen Game Change, you lucky dog, is there anything that was left out that you really wish had been addressed?

 Dunn: Hey, I do feel like a lucky dog to have seen it. And since I was worried about it, actually, I was very very pleased with the film. As I said, it contains a brilliant performance by Julianne Moore—she will receive many awards—and it goes after a deeper story about the truly vulgar nature of American presidential politics. That story is larger than Palin. But no matter how the director and writer and HBO try to spin it, Game Change presents an absolutely devastating portrait of Palin. I was moved and shaken by it. And I know this Palin turf as well as anyone. It was still a revelation. But yes, there is one thing I wish that would have been in the film. I really wish they had included the scene near the end of the campaign with the French-Canadian comedians pretending to be Sarkozy! Moore could have pulled it off. Whenever anyone makes the argument that Palin was prepared for the presidency, I ask them to go back and listen to that interview. I analyze it in great detail in my book. But, damn, it’s not in the film. C’est la vie! 

IM: What do you predict Palin will be doing in the next five years? Do you believe her political career is over, or do you think she has any hope of rising from the ashes?

Dunn: She’s done in Alaska. She certainly had her eyes on that 2014 Senate race, and now she hasn’t got a shot. Zero. Cooked. And she really has no place in real American politics, either. I say “real” because Sarah Palin has become a punch line and a laughingstock. She’s a joke. She holds a very small—albeit intense—niche in the American political discussion, and if she stays at Fox News (where my sources tell me she is not well-loved) she will continue to have a presence. But it is marginal at best. She’s had zero impact on the 2012 race. As soon as Todd endorsed Gingrich, Newt’s prospects sunk. People are interested in Palin, but they don’t take her seriously. It’s truly pathetic to watch her talk about the possibility of her being selected at a brokered convention in Tampa. That’s why she really wants the battle to go on between Romney and the anti-Romney forces. It’s all about her. She didn’t have the guts to run. She didn’t have the political traction. At the end of my book, I liken her to the Wizard of Oz, all smoke and mirrors, “hiding behind a phalanx of curtains and screens with no direct accountability, pulling her levers and turning her wheels to create a fraudulent illusion of power and influence.” She’s nothing more than a snake-oil salesman. She’s a fraud. And the American people have caught on. 

IM: And finally, on a personal note, how is your family? Is Tess's singing career starting to take off? The rest of the family doing well?

 Dunn: We’re all fine. Tess’s career has really taken off since you saw her play at that party in Anchorage [during the summer of ‘09]. She just had a new album release and has been a cover-girl on a couple of mags. Her new album is killer. She’s going to be on the Warped tour again this year. Dylan’s doing great as well, playing basketball and baseball. But they are all very tired of Sarah Palin. Very, very tired of her. Enough already. I agree. 

Well that is great to hear Geoffrey, I am VERY impressed with Tess's success, though of course I knew she would be a star when I first heard her sing in Anchorage almost three years ago now.

And thank you for this great interview my friend, it definitely went a long way toward calming any feelings of concern I, and some of my readers, had about this movie.

So folks get your popcorn ready because we are only a day away from, in Geoffrey's words, "an absolutely devastating portrait of Palin."

Sounds like "must see TV" to me!

Geoffrey Dunn weighs in on Game Change and Steve Schmidt's epiphany concerning Sarah Palin.

Courtesy of the Huffington Post:

Schmidt, above all others perhaps, has understood the resonating impacts of the Palin candidacy. At what were largely overlooked remarks at a recent forum on the 2012 election sponsored by The New Yorker, Schmidt acknowledged that Palin has had a "destructive impact" on the both the tenor and substance of the American political process: 

"I think that she helped usher in an hour of know-nothingness, and mainstreamed it in the Republican Party to the detriment of the conservative movement... And I think her nomination trivialized American politics, and had a lot of results that I'm not particularly comfortable with. And, of course, you know, I had a very personally difficult relationship with her during the campaign. But it was a mistake. There's just no two ways about it." 

Game Change serves as Steve Schmidt's confession. The film reveals Palin for what she is: intellectually dysfunctional, psychologically imbalanced, and most importantly, politically polarizing. Near the end of the film, Schmidt emotionally apologizes to McCain: "I'm so sorry that I suggested her."

Geoffrey  also talks about his off the record interview with Schmidt three years ago while Schmidt was in the middle of his "crisis of faith" if you will, and that his impression of the intimidating political operative that he had been warmed about turned out to be a very conflicted man going through a painful process of recognizing the enormity of what he had almost done to the country that he loves.

I am still somewhat frustrate that people are still working under the impression that Palin was a last minute decision made by Schmidt, other McCain political advisers, and McCain himself.

That is NOT what I have heard repeatedly, and in many ways Palin's own e-mails back up the idea that she was being groomed years in advance of McCain winning the nomination.

In my opinion THAT is the truly explosive part of this whole debacle, but as of yet I have not been able to gather enough evidence to expose it properly.

At the Huffington Post our friend Geoffrey Dunn points out the five undisputed facts about Sarah Palin.

Courtesy of the Huffington Post:

 As part of the orchestrated pushback to Game Change, no fewer than seven of Palin's associates took to the telephone wires angrily denouncing HBO's upcoming fiilm, including her one-time mouthpiece Meghan Stapleton and her former foreign affairs advisor, the controversial neo-con lobbyist Randy Scheunemann. 

What mainstream news accounts of the conference call failed to mention is that all seven of those who partook in the denouncement of Game Change were at one time or another on the payroll of Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, at which they were all paid handsome monthly stipends between $6,000 and $10,000. 

Never mind the fact that none of them had actually seen the film; all seven have had a significant and vested interest in Sarah Palin's post-campaign reputation. This was pushback with a fee attached. Stapleton went so far as to call the movie "sick" and described Schmidt as "abusive" and "abrasive." 

That said, there are several aspects of Palin's erratic and dysfunctional behavior during the 2008 campaign that are well-documented via video, audio tape and emails, all of which I referenced in my own critical book, The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power. The he-said-she-said nature of the Game Change controversy -- all based on off-the-record sources -- creates an opportunity for pushback and denial. The uncontested documents from the 2008 campaign, however, provide no squirm room for Palin and her minions.

To read what those are you need to click the link at the top and visit Huffpo.

Though I am not usually a huge fan of the Huffington Post these days, it is well worth your visit today because Dunn absolutely eviscerates Palin with a little thing we liberals like to all "facts."

Get your popcorn ready kids! "Sarah Palin: You Betcha!" to be available for Video On Demand by November 11th of this year.

Courtesy of Talk TV World:

SARAH PALIN: YOU BETCHA! will be available on Internet VOD/EST on November 8th and Cable VOD on November 11th from Freestyle Digital Media. The DVD will be released in 2012. 

The film is directed by Nick Broomfield (Biggie and Tupac, Kurt & Courtney) and Joan Churchill (Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer) with appearances by: John Bitney (Palin's former Legislative Director), Howard Bess (Former Alaskan pastor), Colleen Cottle (Former Wasilla Deputy Mayor), Walt Moneghan (Former Police Chief of Anchorage), Mike Wooten (Palin's former brother-in-law/Troopergate Scandal), Chuck and Sally Heath (Palin's parents) , Lyda Green (Former Alaskan Senate President), and Laura Chase (Palin's former campaign manager). 

SARAH PALIN: YOU BETCHA! tells the story of Nick Broomfield's quest for the real Sarah Palin - a journey across the icy snows of Alaska in mid winter, to meet the school friends, family, and Republican colleagues that in previous days gave their heart, and souls to the charismatic, charming, and intoxicating ex hockey mum. But it's not all plain sailing. People are frightened to talk, Wasilla makes Twin Peaks look like a walk in the park. It's a devout evangelical community - 76 churches with a population of only 6 thousand, and the Crystal meth capitol of Alaska. Who are the flying monkeys, the enemies, the friends, and most importantly - are you with her or against her? Join the quest and for Christ's sake buy some thermals! 

I am of the mind that much of the reason that this film did not get more attention, and a wider release, was that Palin took herself out of contention for the Republican nomination. Which was great news for America, but really unfortunate for this film because from what I have seen of the documentary it is highly entertaining.

As a rule I do not ever take advantage of my VOD as it always seemed ridiculous to pay the cable bill and then pay additionally to watch a certain movie. I will of course make an exception in this case.

And I will also purchase the DVD which is supposed to be available in 2012. In my opinion we owe Nick, and Joe McGinniss, and Geoffrey Dunn, and Frank Bailey a huge debt of gratitude for scaring Sarah Palin back into the shadows, so if I can repay them even a little by purchasing their books and movies I am definitely going to do so.

(I actually received a free copy of both Geoffrey and Joe's books in the mail, but still purchased an additional copy as well which I have donated to people who could not afford one of their own. They have now both been donated to local libraries if I am not mistaken)

Oh and speaking of books, I had another conversation with Fred this morning and he and his publisher are still working out some kinks, but hope to provide an update, including the release date, in the near future.  From what I understand part of the hold up has to do with the number of pictures included in the book.