What an exciting day we had yesterday! The unexpected email from Christopher Goff, Senior Vice President at Harper Collins, made our day. Many things happened as a result: We made lots of new and important friends, received a large amount of new visitors and the blogsphere showed its muscles and closed ranks in solidarity (many thanks again to Andrew Sullivan, Wonkette and Buzzflash for linking to us). With the new attention we used the unexpected opportunity to get one of our most important messages across to a greatly enlarged audience: That Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy with Trig (it's a FACT, in case you didn't know yet).
Christopher Goff, can we get more emails from you, please?
Palingates and Linda Kellen Biegel's blog "Celtic Diva" were singled out by Harper Collins- why? Other blogs and websites also published extensive excerpts of Sarah Palin's "Book of Lies" - but did they receive a letter by our new friend Christopher Goff? Noooooooooo!
The investigative bloggers are "the" thorn in Sarah Palin's side. We are not afraid of the Quitter Queen, and we are ready to expose her many lies - after all, the MSM has failed on many levels and has for example conveniently overlooked the fact that from an objective point of view, the facts regarding her pregnancy with Trig DO NOT ADD UP. They never have. Believe me: I would not be so stupid to write here as a FACT in public that Sarah Palin had faked her pregancy if I didn't know with 100% certainty that it is indeed a FACT.
Mr Van Flein, do you hear me?
Today I thought it would be a good idea to leave the babygate stuff for now and have some change - there will be many more opportunities to examine her inventions and distortions about her "pregnancy" with Trig in "Going Insane"....pardon, "Going Rogue" in the future.
So I thought: Why not take a closer look at what Sarah Palin has dictated her ghostwriter about Steve Schmidt and Katie Couric!
Let's start with a surprise: Sarah Palin DOES actually have some "good things" to say about McCain's campaign manager Steve Schmidt! Read this:
Davis made the introductions. First, Steve Schmidt, veteran campaign manager, an imposing, gruff-voiced guy who wore sunglasses atop his bald head in the middle of the night. Schmidt, aka "the Bullet", told me he'd managed Arnold Schwarzenegger's gubernational campaign, handled press relations for Dick Cheney, and worked on George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. I knew instantly that Schmidt was business-to-the-bone. I respect that in person, as I'm not one for a lot of chitchat either, and we were very comfortable with each other right off the bat. As a public relations troubleshooter, Schmidt specialized in shaping public opinion. His peers told me he has a laserlike ability to spot chinks in an opponents's armour. He is a guy who inspires loyalty: in spite of his steely exterior, people who work for him really want to please him.
(pages 212, 213)
Haha, I guess Steve Schmidt "the bullet" is firing in the wrong direction now!
Also on page 213, there is a funny quote which she attributes to Steve Schmidt, when Sarah talks about his achievements during the 2004 Bush campaign:
He (Schmidt) was looking for the advantage, and he thought he had found it in Kerry's assertion during the debate that the United States of America needed to pass a "global test" before choosing to act militarily. While the press and the Kerry team were picking apart Bush's performance, Schmidt had found a single, unspent shell he would use to make war. "He told one staffer", "We're going to ram 'global test' right up John Kerry's ass."
Well, I wonder what Steve Schmidt will ram up somebody else's ass after he has read "Going Rogue" in full! ;-)
About ABC's Charlie Gibson, Sarah says that during the "Bush doctrine" interview, he
...peered sceptically at me over his bifocals like a high school principal. (page 271)
Now comes Katie Couric - more than 8 full pages just talking about Katie Couric!
It would probably be difficult to find another person who Sarah Palin ever has hated more in her life. Consequently, the first sentence is:
As for Katie Couric - where do I begin?
(p. 271)
Sarah goes on to say:
If all you know of me comes from that interview, then you don't know me. Needless to say, I have had better interviews. Out of the many, many hours of tape, I had bad moments just like everyone else. I choked on a couple of responses, and in the harried pace of the campaign, I mistakenly let myself become annoyed and frustrated with many of her repetitive, biased questions. What I didn't know was that those few moments would come to define the interviews; they were repeated and mocked so often that everything else has seemingly been forgotten. And that is unfortunate. (p. 271)
Sarah then explains that she believed that there would only be one interview with Katie Couric, and about that one she says:
The first stop was a segment at a hotel near the United Nations, which then turned into a walk-and-talk in front of the UN itself. It didn't go well. I readily admit I did what no politician should ever do - let her annoyance show. I was anxious to get this interview over with and cou could tell, which was my mistake. (p. 272)
Now it comes - poor little Sarah is getting screwed over by CBS and her staffers - as "partners in crime", so to speak...
Ironically, as all this was going through my head, when the walk-and-talk ended and the cameras clicked off, one of the CBS producers, a nice New Yorker with a big presence and a loud voice, walked up to me and started singing my praises. "You did great, Governor, just great! I mean, you just got better and better as you went!"
The Nicolle (Wallace, P.) walked over. "That was great! Now, for tomorrow we're going to---"
"There's going to be a 'tomorrow'?", I asked?
"Yeah, there's another segment - you were really good today."
I thought, Dear Lord, if that's what you call a good interview, then I don't know what a bad one is.
As I walked away, I glanced back and saw Nicolle and Katie share a friendly hug. Then they posed for pictures.
(p. 272)
Then Sarah goes on over great length on more then three pages to explain how her CBS interviews with Katie Couric were unfairly edited! It is simply unbelievable. Funnily, "unbelievable" is also the very last word Sarah uses at the end of the "Katie Couric chapter" (although the sub-chapters have no titles).
Here is a part of what Sarah has to say:
Katie and her producers decided on which fraction America would see - and let's just say the emphasis was on my worst moments. Editing footage is nothing new, of course; I created video packages when I worked as a sports reporter. But responsible editing means you keep substance and context, and trim out fat. When I saw the final cut, it was clear that CBS had sought out the bad moments, and systematically sliced out material that would accurately convey my message. The sin of omission was glaring. (p. 272)
Sarah Palin then gives a few examples of what CBS according to her edited out, and then adds:
I knew the media would distort my responses on social issues. But I thought surely they couldn't distort my economics and energy-related responses, because they would have to stick with the facts. I was mistaken. Though Katie edited out substantive answers, she dutifully kept in the moments where I wore my annoyance on my sleeve. For instance, when she asked me how living in Alaska informed my foreign policy experience, I began by trying to frame the geographical context. Lower 48ers grow up seeing our state tucked with Hawaii in a little square off the coast of Mexico on the nightly news weather map. So I began by trying to squeeze a geographical primer into a ten-second sound bite, explaining that only a narrow maritime border separates Alaska from Russia, that we're very near the Pacific Rim countries, and that we're bordered by Canada. But Katie interrupted and I did not complete my answer. I wish now I had stopped her and said, "Here's the geographical context. Now may I answer your question?" (p. 274)
Then Sarah explaines on another full page why her famous "we can see Russia from Alaska" answer wasn't that bad, and how she could have easily expanded her answer and could have said so many more clever things - the only problem is: She didn't. That's a fact. But did Sarah Palin ever care about facts? Certainly not in her conclusion:
But Katie's purpose - shared by most media types - seemed to be to frame a "gotcha" moment. And it worked. Instead of my scoring points for John McCain, I knew that I had let the team down. (p. 275)
Oh, my God, then comes the next Katie Couric interview, and 3 1/2 more pages about it. Katie Couric truly is Sarah Palin's nemesis. A bit like the personified devil, I guess. Sarah writes:
But when I finished (...) Bexie opened the curtain to let me backstage, there was Katie. Again. With a microphone in hand. I tried really hard to smile, but wondered again about a media strategy that involved ignoring objective journalists and continuing with a reporter who clearly had a partisan agenda. In a situation like this, I's have thought expert political strategists would realize that you don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there. But that's what we did. (p. 276)
Bad bad Katie doesn't stop to harrass poor Sarah:
On the bus, the topic turned to social issues. Katie asked me if I thought it was possible to "pray away gay" - to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality through prayer. Hmmm, I thought. Odd question. I don't think she really wanted to hear my answer because she interrupted me five times as I tried to give it. The badgering had begun. This is really annoying me, I thought. The she asked me about abortion and the morning-after pill twelve times. Twelve different times. I answered as graciously and as patiently as I could. Each time, I reiterated my pro-life, pro-woman, pro-adoption position. But no matter how many ways I tried to say it, Katie responded by asking her question again in a slightly different way. I began to feel like I was in the movie Groundhog Day. (p. 277)
Ok, enough Katie Couric and "Going Rogue" for now. I have to say: Sarah Palin's book is highly entertaining. It is a must-read, because never before was one able to witness so much insanity by a politician written down in a book.
Christopher Goff, I personally would like to thank you for this fascinating reading experience and for the fact that you published Sarah's book. A world without "Going Rogue" is already unimaginable. Never before has a politician exposed herself in such an embarassing way in front of a world-wide audience. What an achievement! Thanks, Harper Collins, for NOT fact-checking the book. I get the impression that you actually didn't like Sarah Palin too much - because you tell a "real friend" if he/she got something wrong, in order to help him/her. It's clear that you had no intention of helping Sarah and correcting her lies before they were going to be published.
Christopher Goff, have you ever dared to question Sarah Palin about her "pregnancy" with Trig? I think you should.
+++
UPDATE:
It looks that Harper Collins will soon have much more serious problems than a few citizen-bloggers discussing excerpts from "Going Rogue".
The Alaskan Republican politician and blogger Andrew Halcro (who is held in the highest regard by several of my sources in Alaska) today has posted an ominous "Monday comment" which Christopher Goff and his colleagues should not overlook.
Andrew Halcro writes:
According to the brief excerpts I've heard, the book seems like it's less about her and more about blaming everybody around her for all of her short comings. From her lack of intelligence to her pregnant daughter, no matter what the problem or criticism, it's always somebody elses fault and never hers.
However, once the book is on the street beginnig Monday, those throughout Palin's 413 page pity party that suffer the wild blows of her imagination will come forward with guns blazing to refute the revisionist history Palin has penned.
From the brief passages that Palin has written about me in her book, the terms unmitigated lies, narcissistic delusions and libel came to mind first.
Obviously she never learned the timely Confucius warning:
"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."
Beginning Monday...the people whom Palin has attacked in her book will start reaching for their own shovels.
From all that I have heard about Andrew Halcro so far, he is a man who means business.
For all the people who have not heard about Andrew Halcro yet or don't know him very well, you can watch Andrew Halcro in this clip, taken during the campaign for the Alaskan Governship in 2006, where Andrew Halcro ran as an Independent. In the clip, Andrew Halcro discusses with Sarah Palin what they would do if their daughters were raped and found that they were pregnant as a result of it. Please take an educated guess what Sarah Palin's answer was...
Furthermore, Andrew Halcro recently announced that he will challenge U.S. Rep. Don Young in the 2010 Republican primary.
EDIT: I have now chosen also to embedd the video clip with Andrew Halcro and Sarah Palin, because it's a very important discussion.
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