Sarah Palin, Glen Rice; add an affair and coke

Supposedly, that's one of the things that Joe McGinniss has in his new Palin bio: the Quitter with a Twitter had a 1987 fling with University of Michigan, then NBA, basketball star Glen Rice.

First, there goes the chastity and purity righteousness angle.

Second, yes, there's a black Republican presidential candidate. Nonetheless, tea partiers are older and whiter than the typical GOP, which is certainly white enough. What does Palin having a relationship with a black man do amongst her biggest partisans? I suspect a whole lot of self-delusional denialism is coming down the pike.

Here's the bigger one, though:

According to the publishing source, McGinniss confirms an ENQUIRER exclusive – published in our Oct. 6, 2008 print issue – that Sarah carried on an extramarital affair with Todd’s business partner Brad Hanson, and Todd dissolved their snowmobile dealership after he learned about the affair.McGinniss  writes in the book that the affair lasted six months and he fuels rumors that the couple’s marriage has been on the rocks for decades.

Remember when Enquirer first reported this, that Palin had had an affair long after marrying Todd? Remember the massive follow-up by the mainstream media? Ahh, yeah, right. That's the sound of silence I recall.

That said, I love how, when the Palins refudiated (hey, c'mon, you saw that coming) the book, the AP reports Hanson released a statement through Palin allies. Did they pay him? How much? Can the Enquirer snoop more on that?

And, yeah, per First Dude, the New York Times did say this book "chases caustic, unsubstantiated gossip.” That's to the Times' detriment, not McGinniss'. It's also laughable, at best, hypocritical at worse, for the Old Gray Lady to chastise him for using anonymous sources. And, if it's "easily available to anyone with Internet access," then why didn't the NYT report more of this itself? Or is the "readily available" only the non-"unsubstantiated"? (Paging Judith Miller, paging Judith Miller!)

Ultimately, Janet Maslin's review, by turns tut-tutting, vaguely elitist/snooty, chiding and "inside New Yorkish" ... "yentas" in Palinville? ... says more about her and her paper than about McGinniss.

Having now read and reviewed McGinniss' book, I see the NYT protests WAYYYYY too much. Reality? This is a solid book; everything the Times calls "gossip" actually, per the legal profession, "goes to motive," to establish Palin's character and personality.

And, speaking of .... I think the Trig birth questions that McGinniss brings up are the "gossip" that the NYT abhors. And, McGinniss has a new answer to this: Palin filed to adopt a Down's baby in order to become a symbol for anti-abortion radicals. She had to hightail it back to Mat-Su Regional Hospital from Dallas because the adoption finalized early. It makes as much sense as anything. 

That said, given what he says about her and her parents, I wouldn't be surprised if there were sexual abuse in her background, given that she may well be manic-depressive, have a love-hate attitude about sexuality, and may be anorexic and/or bulimic.

Speaking of, Politico notes how it's not the first time the Times has shown Palin some love. And, I remember that nutbar column from the Aspen Institute person; it showed what was wrong with two institutions at the same time. I also didn't realize the Times' review violated a publisher's embargo. Niccceee ... hypocrisy and self-righteousness together.

More on the book's controversies, etc., below the fold.

Palin’s Deceptions gets a spoof blog

And, I don’t know how Audrey, of the actual original website and blog, is handling the parody/refutation site. That said, though I still have questions about Trigg’s birth, the parody website producing pictures of Bristol with Tripp, from a Fox interview, it pretty much shoots Audrey’s idea that there would be an actual birth, at the time there was, right in the foot.

(Unless Audrey thinks that’s a borrowed baby or something.)

In other words, it’s awfully hard to argue now that Bristol Palin was actually Trig Palin’s mom.

Therefore, unless somebody can produce some damned good evidence Tripp Palin wasn’t born just over two months ago, I’m dropping the idea that Bristol was Trig’s mom.

That said, I DO think Sarah’s been a horrible mother to Trig starting from the birth. I also still think she’s lying about something; why else hasn’t she produced a birth certificate?

It’s also interesting that Audrey herself hasn’t had a blog post in almost a full month, and her acolytes tell the faithful to have patience, the next Mass will be conducted shortly, and rumors and rabbit trails will be transubstantiated into grand theories. (The Flu [sic on capitalization] doesn’t keep you from blogging for nearly a month, either.)

Interesting that the last post Audrey did herself was on the SAME DAY that the Fox interview referenced by the parody blog, in which Bristol had Tripp in hand, took place.

In other words, IMO, Audrey is stalling and spinning.

That said, as I blogged before, If Sarah is indeed Trig’s and gave birth last April as she claims, a commenter at Celtic Diva has a VERY interesting insight.

Sweet Lucy 47 says:

Palin had become a Pro-abortion Pro-Lifer.

She really didn't want this baby, she had the amnio, found out then the baby was "damaged" and really realized she didn't want it...then denied she was even pregnant for months, until she could deny it no longer, so had to own up to it. Then, in Texas realizing she had a serious problem, made a fateful decision to travel as she did, in the hopes that God would take over and she wouldn't have the baby. Cynical?? Yes, maybe I am...but it all fits in with your explanation, and it all fits in with what happened and it explains the reasoning behind her actions.

Fits to me. It does accept Palin at her word (which ain't worth much) about the legal facts of the birth — and nothing else.

Sarah Palin is ultimately about Sarah Palin, religious beliefs and all. Whether this was a fully conscious mindset or not, it sounds reasonable — and quite perturbing.

For the best refutation of the “Sarah is not Trigg’s mom” nuttery that I long-ago abandoned, held only by people who are cultists of the Palin’s Deception blog, beyond the comments above, visit this post at Celtic Diva.

Tripp Palin now a bastard child for sure

Sorry, Grandma Sarah, but that’s the language folks of your persuasion use as moral talk on the issue of unwed mothers.

And since Bristol is breaking off her engagement to Levi Johnston, Tripp’s gonna be a bastard child.

And, Levi’s sister said Sarah called him “white trash” regularly.

Well, if THAT ain’t the pot calling the kettle white trash …

Sarah Palin does some teen birth flip-flopping

Now that Bristol Palin is allegedly a mother, mom Sarah is backing off her previous support for abstinence-only sex education.

Maybe it’s fallout from the Gov’s recent confusion over “somebody’s” birth timeline with Trig Palin in March of last year, before Tripp was allegedly delivered in late December.

Those confusions, those inconsistencies come glaringly to light in a new rush-to-press biography of the Whore of Wasilla spit out by who else than a People mag editor.

If People, collectively, kisses her ass any more, they’re going to need to get the staff to wear lip condoms.

Of course, Sarah ain’t the only liar – of either mainstream political party – who, when the lies get big enough, simply ignores the tangled, incorrect logical details.

Meanwhile, Bristol is backing off previously announced plans to marry Levi’s 501 Johnston, whose own mom seems to have screwed up some birth timeline issues in the Palin family.

Now, will the Religious Right jump on Queen Sarah for softening her stance? On either abstinence-only sex education or single mothers? Hah.

Salon has more on Sarah’s bullshit, and limelight-hogging.

Anchorage Daily News continues to blow Palin coverage

And, no wonder, because Editor Pat Dougherty continues to be the chief obstructionist to real news coverage.

Now, people who still have legitimate questions about the birth of Trig Palin, let alone Tripp, are “obsessive-compulsives.”

And, in an irony alert indeed, here’s another comment of his:

I should note, however, that many people who commented on adn.com have alleged a coverup. Many of those were deleted as soon as we saw them, but many were not.

Ahh, nice to see that the openness of the Internet hasn’t yet reached Anchorage newspaper offices. And, deleting comments like that fuels the fires of skepticism about your paper.

Elsewhere, we’re “conspiracy nuts.”

Or, we Elsewhere, we’re “make up pseudo-facts.”

And, while Media Matters is often good, commentary like this illustrates why I talk about Mainstream Liberal Blogs, or MSLBs. Also, Eric Boehlert ignores that Sully is still talking about the issue.

ADN's Palin coverage - nothing but wildcat Palin and yellow editors in middle of road

Texas progressive pundit Jim Hightower's most famous book is probably "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos," available at Amazon.

Well, the Anchorage Daily News has now found that out, per the title twist, this past week.

Per e-mails exchanged with Sarah Palin, and now posted by Editor Pat Dougherty on the ADN's editors' blog at the link above, it's clear the ADN's top editorial staff tried to "straddle" the middle of the road on coverage of Trig Palin's paternity and has been thoroughly flattened.

First, the ADN has confessed and admitted to what blogger Cajun Boy said the week before the Nov. 4 election - it DID have a reporter investigating the Trig rumors - Lisa Demer.

At the same time, the ADN took a mindset in advance of assigning Demer to the story that undercut its own work:

You may have been too busy with the campaign to notice, but the Daily News has, from the beginning, dismissed the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth as nonsense.

Just as it now dismisses theories about Bristol Palin's recent alleged first/second motherhood, of Tripp. And, that explains why Pat Dougherty and others won't answer my e-mails about the ADN's non-coverage of that issue, too.

Needless to say, Pat's getting a reaming in comments to this particular blog post. And deserves it.

Let's take a further look at WHY he deserves it.

He goes on to say this after posting the exchange of e-mails on the blog:

According to the “return receipt” feature of my email, my reply was opened shortly after I sent it on New Year’s Eve. Other than that, I have received no response or acknowledgement of that email.

And he acts half-surprised by this, even given this history of Palin's dealings with Derner:

Lisa Demer started reporting. She received very little cooperation in her efforts from the parties who, in my judgment, stood to benefit most from the story, namely you and your family. Even so, we reported the matter as thoroughly as we could. Several weeks ago, when we considered the information Lisa had gathered, we decided we didn't have enough of a story to accomplish what we had hoped. Lisa moved on to other topics and we haven't decided whether the idea is worth any further effort.

He says he's not sure what to do with Demer's reporting. Helloooo????

Hello, you tie in a sidebar about Tripp/Bristol, per your own comment about that in your email. You then give Sarah one last chance to cooperate.

If she doesn't, you run what you have and note the questions you asked her that she wouldn't answer. (Or that you asked Dr. Baldwin Johnson.)

What an effing maroon.

A number of the commenters on his blog post tell Dougherty this is why they, in essence, gave up on the ADN actually doing anything.

Meanwhile, the ever-whiney Palin (if you can't stand the heat, turn the gas up and stick your head in the oven, perhaps) ends HER e-mail with this:

As a public official, I expect criticism and I expect to be held accountable for how I govern . . . often the refusal of the media to correct obvious mistakes, unfortunately discredits too many in journalism today, making it difficult for many Americans to believe what they see in the media.

You need not worry about discrediting the media; people like Pat Dougherty are giving it plenty of self-inflicted discrediting.

E-mail him about this here.

WHAT is up with the Anchorage Daily News on Tripp Palin?

First, we have the ADN getting scooped by People magazine, a non-news enterprise

Then, the mystery deepened, with People changing its initial report of the day of Tripp's birth, two different birth weights reported, etc., the ADN gave us an unbylined story as its initial reporting.

That, then, was followed by Gov. Palin's lying press release about Tripp's birth, in which the ADN didn't challenge a single claim of Palin's press secretary about unidentified alleged lies in media coverage of Tripp's birth.

Then, the ADN runs an inane story on People's "Levi's not a dropout" phone call from Sarah Palin.

You can e-mail Kyle Hopkins, perpetuator of the latest non-story "story," here.

Other e-mail addresses include:
1. Pat Dougherty -- Senior Vice President & Editor
2. Julie Wright -- Managing editor
3. David Hulen -- Assistant managing editor

Here's what I told the four:

Let me see, so far you've been stiffed with a non-press report from Gov. Palin's press spokesman Bill McAllister, followed by uncritically printing one that had the whopper lie of claiming "misinformation" in coverage of Tripp's birth without specificing WHAT misinformation was run by either conventional media or blogs.

In between, the ADN has run your story about Sarah's phone call to People, and had its initial report of the birth being nothing but linking to People's story.

So, when is the ADN going to do some ACTUAL reporting?
1. What hospital was Tripp born in?
2. Any information, on background (to get around HIPAA for attribution in a story) from someone from that hospital?
3. Any pics? What? No photog sent to that hospital, if you knew which one it was?
4. If you didn't know which one it was, why not?

Couple of other things:

First, if McAllister refused to answer follow-up questions, why was that not noted in the initial press release story?

Second, did ADN editorial staff think of running a list of those follow-up questions on which he stiffed you?

Given the background of Trig's birth, I can't believe inquiring minds aren't getting more out of you.

Write them something similar yourself!

Also ask the triumvirate of editorial brass hats this:

Why is rural affairs reporter Kyle Hopkins, rather than Sean Cockerham, your state politics reporter, covering Tripp's birth, anyway?

Update, Jan. 3: None of the four ADN folks above have responded to my e-mails. Please, take up the cudgels!

Sarah Palin breaks silence on Tripp birth -slams press but tells no truths

Other than the mush and fluff about God turning lemons into lemonade with teen pregnancy, etc., immediately following is the nutgraf of Mayor Whazzup's statement:

Bill McAllister, the governor’s office communications director, adds: "The governor's office previously declined to comment to honor the family's wishes that the event remain as private as possible. However, the high volume of press inquiries, along with some erroneous information that was published, prompted the governor to make a statement.

I call bullshit.

WHAT "erroneous information"? If you're going to make that claim, that the press, or blogs like this, have gotten something wrong it's incumbent on YOU, Sarah Palin, to say WHAT we got wrong.

So, until you do that, your comment will be treated as just another lie from the Alaskan Addams Family.

Another lie? Telling People taht Bristol and Levi aren't high school dropouts; Levi, at least, certainly is.

And, other than rerunning press releases, is the Anchorage Daily News going to do further reporting on the issue? Doesn't look a lot like it.

Tripp Palin news rollout adds mystery to birth

Updated, 4 p.m. Central Dec. 30, with even more questions:
1. People, linked immediately below, reports a Saturday birth day, after originally reporting a Sunday birth. A Huffington Post blog linking to it has the Sunday date. And, the New York Daily News either splits the days or else just punts and "over the weekend" was when it happened.

2. People reportedly may pay $300K for the baby pix.

Original story
After People magazine, NOT the local newspaper of record, the Anchorage Daily News, broke the story that Bristol Palin reportedly had a baby boy named Tripp, I was waiting for more from an actual news source.

And, contrary to “Class A liberals” like Jeralyn and her Talk Left readers who think it’s undignified, or tin-foil hatting to ask questions about question-raising political births, I was waiting for the ADN to ask more questions when it could.

And, it now has its own first reporting, but raises more questions than it answers.

First, why is the story bylined “Daily News staff” than a particular reporter or two?

Second, and more importantly, why can’t the Gov. herself, Mayor Whazzup, the Whore of Wasilla, even put out a press release??? Why won’t she talk, or return phone calls?

From the People story:

On Monday, Bill McAllister, a spokesman for Gov. Palin said, “This office will not be issuing any statements on [Bristol’s baby]. We’re here to talk about state government and that matter falls outside of that.”

Bullshit. Sarah put out a PR about Trig’s birth and that was no more state government news than this birth.

And, why did the ADN not get even that comment in its story? Click here for further commentary and questions about the ADN's lack of reporting on this issue, complete with e-mail addresses for you to contact.

Also, why is Bristol’s great aunt the only person commenting for the record, from the People story?

WTF is up?

That right there raises the skepticism antennae. Will the ADN or other media have their antennae up?

If People is so hot for this story, again, contra the “Class A liberals,” where are its paparazzi shutterbugs?

So, while Palinites, who would elect Sarah the Virgin Mary if they could, will claim this birt rules out the timeline that Bristol, not Sarah Palin, was the mother of Trig, I say hold on. The Dec. 20 due date for Bristol with little Tripper wasn’t publicly announced until relatively late in the pregnancy. But, it does crimp that possibility somewhat.

That said, I wouldn’t trust a Palin birthing statement that is unsubstantiated by medical records any more than I would a George W. Bush foreign policy statement.

Doesn't that about say it all with the Alaskan Addams Family?

So, no, I am not closing any books on Palin Family Chronicles stories yet.

Meanwhile, for new visitors to this blog, here is where my Palin family births coverage started.

And, for Sarah Palin's lying initial press release about Tripp's birth, go here.