Rep. Darrell Issa (r) said Tuesday that Rep. Joe Sestak's (l) allegation that the White House offered him a job to coax him out of a race against Arlen Specter could be an "impeachable" offense. (AP)
Rep. Joe Sestak's allegation that the White House offered him a job to drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary race against Arlen Specter is a crime that could lead to the impeachment of President Obama, Rep. Darrell Issa said.
But the decision by the Pennsylvania congressman not to elaborate on a so-called deal also could become a political problem as Sestak tries for the U.S. Senate seat.
The White House reportedly is going to formally address the allegation in the next few days. In the meantime, Issa, R-Calif., is one of many inside and outside Washington who want the Democratic Senate primary candidate to explain in detail what offer the White House made.
"It's very clear that allegation is one that everyone from Arlen Spector to Dick Morris has said is in fact a crime, and could be impeachable," said Issa, who is threatening to file an ethics compliant if Sestak doesn't provide more details about the alleged job offer.
Sestak, a former vice admiral in the Navy, first alleged in February that the White House offered him a high-ranking position in the administration last summer if he would sit out the primary against Specter, who won the backing of the White House and state Democratic leaders for switching parties.
The allegation is considered one of the factors that helped him defeat Specter, who was viewed as unscrupulous in doing whatever he could to keep his seat, including changing his party to win White House support for an uphill re-election battle.
But now, Sestak has to go into the general election, where his opponent, former Republican Rep. Pat Toomey, is willing to use the topic as referendum on both Sestak's and Obama's credibility.
"Congressman Sestak should tell the public everything he knows about the job he was offered, and who offered it," Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey said in a written statement. "To do otherwise will only continue to raise questions and continue to be a needless distraction in this campaign."
And Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a close ally of the president, said Sestak can't continue to lay out the charge without backing it up.
"At some point, Congressman Sestak needs to make it clear what happened," he said.
Issa said this allegation is bigger than the Senate race.
"For Joe Sestak, he can dance around it and he may or may not be a senator," he said. "But for the White House, this problem's not going away. Adm. Sestak is in fact a very reliable source."
Ann Marie McAvoy, a former federal prosecutor, said the White House could have a problem on its hands depending on what the facts show.
"If they were simply offering him a job because they thought he was a qualified person for it and there was no request made that he in essence drop out of the race, it would be different," she told Fox News. "This is why there really needs to be an in depth investigation. There needs to be witness interviews and so on to figure out what happened, who said what, what were the other circumstances surrounding it."
Issa has called on the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor but Attorney General Eric Holder has said that won't be necessary.
"We assure you that the Department of Justice takes very seriously allegations of criminal conduct by public officials," Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich told Issa in a letter. "All such matters are reviewed carefully by career prosecutors and law enforcement agents, and appropriate action, if warranted, is taken."
Weich said a special prosecutor won't be needed because the Justice Department "has a long history of handling investigations of high level officials professionally and independently, without the need to appoint a special counsel."
But McAvoy said any allegation of wrongdoing shouldn't be left to the Justice Department to decide.
"Someone in the administration had this conversation which means that would be the person mostly likely who committed the crime if there is a crime," she said. "So you have the people who are representing the people who potentially committed the crime are making the determinations as to whether anything wrong happened. That's not the way it's supposed to happen."
Issa compared any potential cover-up to the Watergate scandal of the Nixon era.the White House Tuesday of a cover up similar to the Watergate scandal.
"It's not about what was done wrong. It's about the cover up," Issa told Fox News. "And right now, there's a cover up going on at the White House 10 weeks after the allegation."
As the international community rushes to condemn Israel for the violence on board one of the ships in the Gaza flotilla, which left a reported 10 people dead and dozens injured, it is now obvious that the real purpose of this ‘armada of hate’ was not merely the further delegitimisation of Israel but something far worse.
Gaza’s markets are full of produce, thousands of tons of supplies are travelling into Gaza every week through the Israeli-controlled border crossings, and there is no starvation or humanitarian crisis. It was always obvious that the flotilla was not the humanitarian exercise it was said to be. Here is footage of the IDF offering to dock the Marmara -- the main flotilla ship -- at Ashdod and transfer its supplies and being told ‘Negative, negative, our destination is Gaza’.
And now we can see that the real purpose of this invasion -- backed by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), a radical Islamic organization outlawed by Israel in 2008 for allegedly serving as a major component in Hamas’s global fund-raising machine -- was to incite a violent uprising in the Middle East and across the Islamic world. As I write, reports are coming in of Arab rioting in Jerusalem.
The notion – uncritically swallowed by the lazy, ignorant and bigoted BBC and other western media – that the flotilla organisers are ‘peace activists’ is simply ludicrous. This research by the Danish Institute for International Studies details the part played by the IHH in Islamist terror in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya. According to the French magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere testifying at the Seattle trial of would-be al Qaeda Millenium bomber Ahmed Ressamin, the IHH had played ‘[a]n important role’ in the al Qaeda Millenium bomb plot targeting Los Angeles airport. It was also involved in weapons trafficking, and played in addition a key role in galvanizing anti-Western sentiment among Turkish Muslims in the lead-up to the 2003 war in Iraq. ‘Peace activists’ these people most certainly are not.
And this flotilla was but the latest jihadi attack, deploying the Islamists’ signature strategy of violence and media manipulation. Here from MEMRI (via Just Journalism) is a clip showing the hysteria against Israel being whipped up on board before the ships set sail, with the chanting of intifada songs about ‘Khaybar’ – the iconic slaughter of Jews by Muslims in the 7th century which is used as a rallying cry to kill the Jews today -- and threats of ‘martyrdom’. This was not merely a propaganda stunt, but a terrorist attack.
This is what the Jerusalem Post reported earlier today about what happened last night:
According to the IDF, the international activists ‘prepared a lynch’ for the soldiers who boarded the ships at about 2 a.m. Monday morning after calling on them to stop, or follow them to the Ashdod Port several hours earlier.
... Upon boarding the ships, the soldiers encountered fierce resistance from the passengers who were armed with knives, bats and metal pipes. The soldiers used non-lethal measures to disperse the crowd. The activists, according to an IDF report, succeeded in stealing two handguns from soldiers and opened fire, leading to an escalation in violence.
Benayahu said soldiers, who had been dispatched to block the flotilla because of fears that it was carrying weaponry and other highly dangerous cargo into the Hamas-controlled Strip, were attacked with knives and bars and sharpened metal implements.
Benayahu said two pistols that had been fired were subsequently found aboard the one ship, the Marmara, on which the violence erupted. And, most dramatically, he said that one IDF soldier had his weapon snatched away by one of the ‘peace activists’ on board, that this weapon was then turned against the IDF soldiers, who came under fire, and that they had no choice but to shoot back in self-defense.
... What seems urgent now is to make publicly available footage that shows exactly what did unfold. In early afternoon, video footage screened on Israel’s Channel 2 appeared to show one of those aboard the Marmara stabbing an IDF soldier. Any such footage should have been made available hours earlier. Critically, if footage showing a soldier’s weapon being snatched and turned on the IDF troops exists, it should be broadcast, and the sooner the better.
Some of this footage is now available on the web but much of it is hard to follow: as ever, the Israelis have been far too slow in making the most telling images and information available in comprehensible form (including in English rather than in Hebrew, for heaven’s sake!). This clip appears to show masked and armed flotilla activists beating Israeli soldiers (although here is the BBC report accompanying that footage, in which the voiceover appears to be claiming, perversely, that the people in masks were Israeli soldiers. That said, the report on Radio Four’s World at One was fair and balanced). This clip shows an Israeli soldier being stabbed. This IDF clip and this one show attacks on the commandoes including throwing one off the deck, attacking others with a metal pole and a firebomb and an attempted kidnap of another.
It is also becoming clearer as the day wears on that, far from storming the boats in order to attack those on board, the Israelis were hopelessly ill-prepared for the violence they encountered. Israel’s Channel 10 and IDF radio have reported that the Israeli naval commandos were equipped with paint ball rifles to ensure minimum casualties among the flotilla terrorists, with their hand guns to be used only as a last resort. The terrorists tried connecting the steel cables from the overhead helicopters to the boat's antenna, in order to cause the helicopters to crash. Only when the terrorists beat the soldiers with iron rods, stabbed them with knives and tried to lynch them did the soldiers respond. The Israeli commandoes were pushed down stairs, thrown overboard, and shot at. Here is a report by an Israel army radio reporter on board:
‘The activists had many things ready for an attack on the soldiers,’ Lev-Rom said, ‘including, for instance, a box of 20-30 slingshots with metal balls; these can kill. There were also all sorts of knives and many similar things. These are what they call “cold” weapons, as opposed to live fire. It was quite clear that a lynch had been prepared.’
Lev-Rom said, however, that it appears the army, ‘even though it prepared for many different scenarios, was not ready for this one. The army seems not to have known what type of people were there and what type of weapons they had. It was hard for Israel to conceive that the ship, sponsored by the country of Turkey, would have such weapons. Israel was prepared to deal with anarchists, and instead had to deal with terrorists – that’s the feeling here.’
Here** is an even more vivid account showing how unprepared the Israeli soldiers were:
Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back.
However, to their misfortune, they were only equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons.
One soldier who came to the aid of a comrade was captured by the rioters and sustained severe blows. The commandoes were equipped with handguns but were told they should only use them in the face of life-threatening situations. When they came down from the chopper, they kept on shouting to each other ‘don’t shoot, don’t shoot,’ even though they sustained numerous blows.
The Navy commandoes were prepared to mostly encounter political activists seeking to hold a protest, rather than trained street fighters. The soldiers were told they were to verbally convince activists who offer resistance to give up, and only then use paintballs. They were permitted to use their handguns only under extreme circumstances.
The planned rush towards the vessel’s bridge became impossible, even when a second chopper was brought in with another crew of soldiers. ‘Throw stun grenades,’ shouted Flotilla 13’s commander who monitored the operation. The Navy chief was not too far, on board a speedboat belonging to Flotilla 13, along with forces who attempted to climb into the back of the ship.
The forces hurled stun grenades, yet the rioters on the top deck, whose number swelled up to 30 by that time, kept on beating up about 30 commandoes who kept gliding their way one by one from the helicopter. At one point, the attackers nabbed one commando, wrested away his handgun, and threw him down from the top deck to the lower deck, 30 feet below. The soldier sustained a serious head wound and lost his consciousness.
Only after this injury did Flotilla 13 troops ask for permission to use live fire. The commander approved it: You can go ahead and fire. The soldiers pulled out their handguns and started shooting at the rioters’ legs, a move that ultimately neutralized them. Meanwhile, the rioters started to fire back at the commandoes.
It is becoming ever more clear that Islamist terror attacks like this are fiendishly staged theatrical events in which the western media – and beyond them, western governments -- play an absolutely essential role in the drama. If those media and governments refused to swallow the lies and instead called operations like this and the players behind it for what they actually are, such terrorist operations would not happen. The Islamist strategy of war against Israel is carefully calibrated to deploy the most effective weapon in its armoury in the cause of jihadi violence – the western media. Right on cue, western governments accordingly deliver their own script in condemning the victims of terror for defending themselves. And so, courtesy of the west’s fifth columnists, yet another nail is driven into the west’s own coffin.
Let’s see whether this time the western elites show any signs of waking from their lethal trance. Update: I am told that the Jewish Chronicle website was taken down earlier (now restored) by a massive denial of service, apparently to shut down its balanced coverage of the Ashdod flotilla incident. The JC's teccies, and the server hosts, say this hasn't been caused by just one or two people --- it's clearly now co-ordinated and growing. **Update 2: The journalist who wrote this account, Ron Ben-Yishai, cannot be accused of being an Israel government stooge: it was Ben-Yishai who in 1982 was first into the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Shatila in Beirut and blew the whistle on the massacre there that had been perpetrated by the Phalangists while Ariel Sharon looked the other way.
But of course. I would have expected nothing less.
This from Gateway Pundit:
Barack Obama’s close family friends, terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and top campaign bundler Jodie Evans from Code Pink are top activists with the Gaza flotilla group that attacked the IDF today. Code Pink activist and radical leftist Jodie Evans was one of Barack Obama’s top bundlers during the 2008 campaign.
The Real Barack Obama reported:
Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, reports from New York:
The group behind the Gaza flotilla that engaged in deadly clashes with Israeli commandos today counts among its top activists Weather Underground terrorist founders William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn as well as Jodie Evans, the leader of the radical activist organization Code Pink
.
Ayers and Dohrn were close associates for years with President Obama, while Evans was a fundraiser and financial bundler for Obama’s presidential campaign.
Earlier today, Israeli navy commandos raided the six-ship flotilla, encountering heavy resistance and live fire from the activists. Nine activists were killed and dozens of others were reportedly injured, as were several of the Israeli commandos.
The flotilla was organized by the Free Gaza Movement, a coalition of leftist human rights activists and pro-Palestinian groups engaged in attempts to break a blockade imposed by Israel on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Ayers, Dohrn and Evans’ Code Pink have led several recent Free Gaza Movement initiatives, including attempted marches into the Gaza Strip. Dorhn was in the Middle East just last month on behalf of the movement.
Evan’s Code Pink, a supposed “peace” group, have long been supporters of any and all groups dedicated to the destruction of Israel. The more violent, the better.
It’s also no surprise that Obama’s best friends and neighbors, Ayers and Dohrn have a hand in all of this. These are violent, unrepentant murderers who set of bombs in police stations and military recruiting centers nationwide, as well as bombing the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol building, and New York City police headquarters.
As you may recall, Dohrn, a convicted felon for her part in the violent murder of police officers, is Bill Ayers’ second wife. His first wife blew up herself and other members of Ayers’ Weather Underground terrorist organization, while making a bomb filled with nails and other shrapnel that was to be planted at a military dance.
It should be noted that Ayers, a devout communist who has mentored Obama for years, and once encouraged his followers to “kill all of the rich people” is himself quite wealthy. His father, Thomas Ayers was President and CEO of Commonwealth Edison, and reportedly left his murdering terrorist son quite well off when he died in 2007.
Obama’s hatred for Israel, and willingness to work with terrorist organizations that support Israel’s demise is well documented. This is, of course, quite troubling for most Americans, who stand with Israel, unconditionally. Still, even for Obama, this is a shocking revelation, and more proof the man isn’t fit for office.
Obama has close ties to some of the most evil people ever known, dangerous murderers, communist thugs, and demented swine. He does not represent America in the least. Instead, Obama represents the enemies of Freedom and Liberty, worldwide, quite well. He should be forced to answer for all of this. This is simply unacceptable.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has an incredible write up about the Gaza attacks, complete with video here and Allahpundit has more here.
Here’s just a sampling of video that can be seen at Hot Air:
Remember, two of Obama’s closest friends are involved in this. They are supporting this, and funding this. Again, this is simply unacceptable, and this act should not be allowed to go unpunished. This is no less than an act of war against our ally and friend, and proof Obama is not a friend of Liberty and Freedom, but is a friend of radical Islam, and terrorism, and unfit to continue as President of these United States.
The first thing Barack Obama probably should have done was to order the livestreaming Oil Spill Cam to be turned off. As the President insisted to Americans that he was "singularly focused" on staunching the flow, there was that mesmerising image on their television screens of plumes of hydrocarbons gushing relentlessly into the Gulf of Mexico.
When any political leader feels they have to declare that they are "fully engaged" in an issue, it is clear that they are in trouble. Talking about it undermines the very point you are trying to make - not to mention that pesky Oil Spill Cam showing that, 38 days into the Deepwater Horizon disaster, not a whole lot had been achieved.
Even judging Obama by his words, he has fallen woefully short over what has now eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez wreck as biggest oil spill catastrophe in American history. He may have described it as an "unprecedented disaster" in last Thursday's press conference but a week into the crisis he was blithely stating that "this incident is of national significance" and rest assured he was receiving "frequent briefings" about it.
George W Bush's unpopularity and perceived incompetence was encapsulated by the way he dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Candidate Obama branded it "unconscionable incompetence".
Central to Obama's appeal was his promise to be truly different. His failure to achieve that is now at the core of the deep disappointment Americans feel about him. At the press conference - the first full-scale affair he had deigned to give for 309 days - he appeared uncomfortable and petulant.
His approach to the issue was that of the law student suddenly fascinated by a science project. He displayed none of the visceral indignation Americans feel about pretty much everything these days - two-thirds now say they are "angry" about the way things are going - resorting instead to Spock-like technocratic language and legalese. "I'm not contradicting my prior point," he stated at one juncture. During those 63 minutes of soporific verbosity, about 800 barrels of oil poured into the Gulf.
Obama engaged in the obligatory populist bashing of Big Oil and, of course, demonstrated the Obama administration's version of Tourette's Syndrome, blaming the previous administration for the situation when, by my reckoning, it's a full 16 months since Bush left office.
By Friday, he was sticking his finger in the sand at Grand Isle, Louisiana as part of a photo op self-consciously designed to contrast with Bush's famous looking down on the Katrina devastation from Air Force One. It was Obama's second visit to Louisiana in the 39 days since disaster struck. According to C'BS's Mark Knoller, in the same period Bush visited the post-Katrina region seven times.
But perhaps the most dangerous sign during the press conference for Democrats fearful of an unprecedented electoral disaster in November's mid-term elections was the evasion and opacity of the man who promised a new era of transparency and a different kind of politics.
When asked about the resignation of the director of the Minerals Management Service - an agency he had excoriated - he professed that "I don't know the circumstances in which this occurred". She had, of course, been fired.
Even worse was Obama's refusal to say anything about the growing furore over White House attempts to persuade Congressman Joe Sestak to pull out of the Democratic Senate primary contest in Pennsylvania. Obama's advisers had preferred the Republican turncoat Senator Arlen Specter - and Sestak inconveniently let slip that he'd been offered a government job to step aside.
That was potentially illegal and for weeks the White House stonewalled. When, even more inconveniently, Sestak beat Specter, the trust-us-nothing-untoward-happened approach would no longer wash. But still Obama declined to answer the question on Thursday, fobbing the reporter – and America – off with the promise that "there will be an official response shortly on the Sestak issue".
This did indeed come the following day – conveniently timed for that Friday afternoon news void before the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Lo and behold, it turns out that none other than former President Bill Clinton was asked by Obama's chief of staff and Chicago enforcer Rahm Emanuel to offer Sestak a place on a presidential board.
Whether or not the law was broken, the cynicism of this is breathtaking. Obama offered a break from the Clinton-Bush past and an end to the shoddy backroom deals of Washington. So what does he do? He tries to deny Pennsylvania voters a chance to decide for themselves by using his former foe Clinton to offer a grubby inducement.
It was perhaps a fitting end to one of the worst weeks of Obama presidency, in which a Rasmussen one poll pegged his popularity at a new low of 42 percent. In an environment in which Americans are disillusioned and cynical about Washington and all it stands for, the Clinton-Sestak manoeuvre could be a political calamity for Obama.
Perhaps he should be grateful after all that the Oil Spill Cam was still beaming up footage from the sea bed.
As promised, a complete update on what is going on in Sarah Palin’s world. We were writing this earlier when we got yet more wild news, and felt we needed to get out it out there. Believe me, this was worth the wait!
To recap:
Sarah Palin has a new neighbor. Stacy Drake details that wonderful moment here. Washington Post hack, Dave Weigel, proves to the world he’s a total douchebag, as we wrote here.
Ruth Marcus felt left out of the douchebaggery, as Stacy Drake points out here.
We found out that Joe McGinniss has a habit of stalking subjects of his so-called “journalism” and betrayed an innocent man, who is now in prison for murder, after being paid to help the guy, and pretending to be his friend. This one is a must read, here.
As Stacy Drake reported, here, things got even weirder with what we know is a load of BS, supposedly coming from the Palin’s neighbor.
OK, With that out of the way, let’s get to some new stuff, as of Thursday night.
Wednesday Sarah did a couple of radio interviews, starting with Glenn Beck:
The big news coming out of this interview is the fact Sarah will be appearing at Glenn Beck’s 8/28 Restoring Honor celebration in Washington, D.C.. You can bet she will add greatly to the event.
We all loved George Bush. The guy wasn’t perfect, but overall a decent man. Our biggest gripe with President Bush is he never fought back against his haters. Until Sarah came along, I had never seen so much hatred aimed at one individual. Of course, that’s all the left has, a burning hatred for anyone and anything that doesn’t conform to their diseased ideology, and of course, they lie about the subject of their hatred. If somehow hatred and lies were outlawed, Marxist-democrats would simply cease to exist.
The left can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas, so all they have is their hate to fuel them.
Bush would never fight back, something that frustrated his loyal supporters to no end. Even when they made movies, wrote plays and books, all detailing their fantasies of Bush’s assasination, Bush said nothing. Can you imagine that thin skinned loser we have in the White House now being so strong? Me neither.
Bush thought it beneath the dignity of the Office of the President to engage in that sort of thing. Bush respected the presidency so much, he wouldn’t make it about him. While that is commendable to no end, the entire nation would have been to the better had Bush spent just a little bit of time fighting these rotten leftists.
Sarah Palin doesn’t have this problem. She is a born fighter. Sarah Palin is a fearless warrior. She doesn’t take nothin’ off of nobody. I think that’s why Sarah resonates with Americans so strongly. America loves a fighter, and loves a winner. Sarah Palin is both. America respects a fighter. America NEEDS a fighter!
After Glenn Beck’s show, Sarah was a guest on the Sean Hannity radio show. Of course they talked about her pervert stalker, and the nonsense surrounding all of that, but they also talked policy, especially energy policy, and of course British Petroleum, and the oil spill.
Just to remind readers, Sarah has first hand experience in dealing with exactly the kind of situation those in the Gulf are facing. As an oil and gas regulator, Sarah was tough on the oil companies, and as Governor, she got even tough, creating an oversight agency to keep a better eye on things.
Sarah ended the oil companies’ cozy relationships with government regulators, and officials. In fact, she was so tough on the oil companies, that at one point she was accused of being anti-business. And yet, the lying media tries to paint her as an oil company shill. I imagine Sarah has a good laugh on that one!
Back to McGinnis, the perv, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly went off on him on Wednesday as well.
De-licious!
Now for some updates on McGinniss:
If you remember, Ben Smith over at Politico shared an e-mail from McGinniss’s son, that intimated the old man had lost it. Now Ben reported this as straight up fact. Today he is backpedaling and claiming it was sarcasm.
I’m not a trained “journalist” or writer, but I know enough to let people know, when quoting someone else, whether we are dealing with sarcasm, or not. After all, Smith is the one who had the contact with Joe Jr., not us. Smith has had further contact with Joe Jr., and as Stacy Drake reported in her “neighbor” report above, Joe Jr’s credibility isn’t a hell of a lot better than his creepy stalker dad’s!
Let’s take Ben Smith at his word though. There is still plenty of proof that McGinniss is a creepy stalker, and most certainly hung up on Sarah Palin. We told you that McGinniss tried to bid on dinner with Sarah, offering up $60,000. There is a lot more.
When Sarah was on her book tour, freak boy followed her around. He “broke” the big story that yes, Sarah Palin flies on airplanes. Just how deranged is this idiot? He went crazy reporting on the fact that during Sarah’s book tour, she wasn’t on the Bus 24/7. This “astonishing revelation” was, of course, reported breathlessly by the lamestream media, showing what morons the entire bunch are.
As normal people understood, …. they could actually read her daily schedule….and understand the words….Sarah’s schedule was hectic. Many days she had two or three signings in one day, and many times these signings were quite a distance a part. Far enough apart that there was physically no way one could drive there in the time allotted to travel. It was beyond ridiculous for anyone to make something of this, but this is how pathetic these people are.
Besides shadowing Sarah on the book signing trail, McGinniss also showed up in Alaska, ignoring all of the “no trespassing” signs (which makes the story below even funnier) and tried to give Sarah one of his books.
Knowing all we know about Joe McGinniss, so far, it’s safe to say he’s a freak, a creep, and a stalker. But it gets better.
Josh Painter reported today that some reporters came calling on Joe:
Joe McGinness to ABC News: “Get off my property!” ABC News discovers that stalker Joe McGinness is also a hypocrite:
McGinniss, who is being accused of invading the Palins’ privacy, himself claimed that his was being invaded when ABC News knocked at his door to get a comment.
“Get off, you’re trespassing,” McGinniss said through his window. “I am going to have to call the Wasilla police. Get off my property, now, I am going to put in the call.”
It’s not your property, Joe. You’re just renting.
This little stunt of yours was a lot of fun for you and your leftist fellow travelers when you thought you could intimidate Gov. Palin and her family wasn’t it? But when the shoe went on the other foot, you sure lost your cool fast! That’s the thing with “progressives.” They love to dish it out, but they can’t take it.
How delicious is THAT! What a jackass this guy is. Josh has more, with video, here. Bluegrass Punditadds this little tidbit to the mix:
ABC News reporter Neal Karlinsky goes to the house McGinniss is living in and tries to talk to him. McGinniss tells Karlinsky to “get off my property,” and threatens to call the Wasilla police! He has now even posted “No Trespassing” Signs on the property!
This degenerate had absolutely no problem ignoring Sarah Palin’s no trespassing signs in his deranged pursuits, but expects people to respect the ones he’s thrown up. This reminds me of an interviewer who cornered Obama’s buddy, murdering domestic terrorist William Ayers to ask some questions. Now bear in mind, this is a guy who bombed police stations, and is married to a convicted cop killer. What do you think happened? That tool called the police, of course! Incredibly, they even showed up.The left has no shame.
McGinniss is a real loser, for sure, but this story just gets better. (Or worse, depending on how you score it) .
Rich Clowther at Conservatives4Palin deliciously skewers our buddy Dave Weigel, but also reports some not so shocking detail on who this loser McGinniss hangs with when he is in Alaska. While absolutely wearing Weigel out, Clowther writes:
Well the Palins see things differently, Mr Weigel. They have a different perspective, one borne of distressing, real life, personal experience.
They and their children have lived through the unprecedented harassment of the last 20 months: the email hacking which led to frightening phone calls to their eldest daughter in the middle of the night; the 26 ethics complaints which stifled the Palin Administration and came to nought; the deliberately malicious attempt to cause controversy and split a family with fabrication about divorce; the attacks on their most vulnerable child; the lie that the Palins were under federal investigation for embezzlement; the burningn of their church; the hate speak Trig Troofing conspiracies of Andrew Sullivan and Jesse Griffin and a notorious European blog; the misogynistic invective of a local Alaska Democratic Party office holder…. they’ve lived through all that and more David Weigel… and could perhaps be forgiven that they seem inclined to be wary, less magnanimous than you, less inclined to exercise equilibrium.
When Joe McGinniss moves in next door they don’t see that action as divorced from the context of the previous 20 months, as you appear to do, Mr Weigel.
Sure they remember that as an investigative journalist McGinniss has been critical of their mother… but, unlike you, perhaps they also remember who Joe’s friends are, with whom Joe chooses to socialize when he visits Alaska:
I [Jesse Griffin] found the table that our host Phil Munger had reserved for us and sat down with some of his other guests, who I did not know, but who turned out to be fans of both IM and Mudflats. (Oh did I mention that AKM was with me?) Soon I was introduced to author Joe McGinniss, who is up here researching HIS Sarah Palin book, and who also turned out to be a huge fan of both AKM’s and I. (I swear I will NEVER get used to hearing that.)
Mr. McGinniss entertained us with tales of the colorful characters he has met while doing research for the book he is currently working on and back in the 1970′s for his novel Going to Extremes.
Readers will wish to avoid opening this link to theimmoralminority but they (and the Palins) know all about those with whom McGinniss hangs out,
• The liberal Alaska blogger and Palin-hater Jesse Griffin (who attacks the Palin family every day, and tells his readers he knows that Sarah Palin is not the mother of her fifth child, and who advocates the even more lunatic conspiracy that there are in fact three different versions of her fifth child)
• The local Alaska Democratic Party office holder and Palin hater Phil Munger (who tells his readers that Governor Palin is a slut and a whore)
• The Alaska based Huffington Post correspondent and Palin hater Jeanne Devon (who has accused the Palins of being tax cheats, and who is BFF with Alaska based blogger Shannyn Moore, the person who announced mendaciously on MSNBC that the Palins were under federal investigation)
… and knowing all this about Joe McGinniss and the “despicable” company he keeps, when he turns up next door the Palins instantly feel less safe in their own home, Mr Weigel.
The claim that the Palins owe their neighbor money is exceedingly difficult to believe on several levels. McGinniss claims the Palins owe the neighbor for “renovations” she performed for them. Really? Along with a few buddies, Todd built the Palins’ home. The Palins are currently adding a 6,000 square foot addition with Todd heavily involved in the construction. In addition, Todd has managed to put up a rather large fence in just a couple days. Todd Palin doesn’t strike me as someone who would need help with “renovations” from an absentee neighbor. He seems to be managing just fine without said neighbor’s renovating expertise, wouldn’t you say?
Moreover, are we really expected to believe that the Palins stiffed their neighbor for a bill and we’re only finding out about it now? We’re to believe that the neighbor was so angry over this that she sought out Joe McGinniss to get payback instead of running straight to the media (or at least the leftist bloggers in Alaska)? She could have been a folk hero to Keith Olbermann’s seven viewers. But if she was really interested in collecting money from the Palins, she could have simply answered her phone.
[...]
To sum this up, the Palins rented the house last summer to avoid the very situation in which they find themselves this summer. Further, the Palins repeatedly tried to contact the neighbor all winter to rent the house again this summer or, if possible, buy the property. Despite these efforts, the Palins could not get the absentee neighbor to return their calls. Hmmmmmm. Now I’ll admit to having no bill collecting experience but, it seems to me, that if someone owed me money and they were calling me, I’d take the call. But that’s just me…
It’s pretty clear that the entire tale of the Palins owing a neighbor money for some unspecified renovations is ludicrous on its face. Does anyone seriously think the Palins don’t pay their bills? Even Ben Smith appeared to question the veracity of the neighbor’s claim by updating his post to note the Palins repeated attempts to contact her:
UPDATE: Palin told Glenn Beck yesterday that her husband had been “trying to get hold of [the neighbor] all winter long” to ask about renting or buying the place, in part “for fear of something like this happening.”
Mr. McGinniss, through his son, appears to be trying to change the subject from his bizarre behavior. Conduct which has even been criticized as “outrageously, unnecessarily intrusive” by a left-wing Palin-critic at the Washington Post. Stalking is the only accurate term to describe the following actions undertaken by Mr. McGinniss: illegally ignoring the Palin’s no trespassing signs to hand deliver books, outrageously bidding for the Ride2Recovery charity dinner so he could harass Governor Palin, chasing Governor Palin at book signing(s), and now this latest stunt.
You can read more from Doug here.
BTW, Greta has photos of the fence here.
I have to ask readers. If you had to put up with one tenth of the crap the Palins have to put up with, would you still be able to be the warrior Sarah is, and never back down? I wonder if the GOP establishment show ponies could handle it.
I’m with Glenn Beck on one thing for sure. Todd Palin deserves some sort of an award. You must know the urge to grab a few of these devils by the neck and just beat the hell out of ‘em is hard to suppress. Todd is a much better man than I, for sure. As Sarah says, he has the patience of Job.
We cheer for Sarah daily, celebrate her grit, and determination. I think we should all raise a glass every now and again, and toast Todd Palin, he’s earned it!
As delicious as all of the above is, I saved the desert for last.
Since the Washington Post’s “Conservative Republican Insider” Dave Weigel, decided to attack Sarah Palin for being so rude as to defend herself and her family, we’ve hit him pretty hard already, which we linked to above. We stand by the assertion that Weigel is a first class a-hole. A complete and total loser. Now, we can add scumbag and liar to his resume.
Both Red State’s Erick Erickson, and Dr Melissa Clouthier went after Weigel hard, and both smack downs are epic, but I came away with a couple of things.
Again, Weigel tries to pass himself off as the “Conservative Republican Insider.” Erickson outs the guy though. It seems that Weigel voted for Al Gore, John Kerry….who served in Vietnam, and Barack Obama. I know a lot of real Conservatives, and absolutely none of them would vote for that axis of evil.
Erickson points out that Weigel once wrote for publications funded by Nazi collaborator, and self-proclaimed “owner of the democrat party” George Soros. This is Dr Evil himself. Ian Fleming’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld come to life. If Weigel wrote for him, he’s no conservative, he’s a plant, a phony.
Erickson writes:
In fact, if you go through Dave’s archives you’ll find a slew of stories from the most recent one as I write
to others that no one on the right really cares about, but people on the left who see the right collectively as fringe will eat up. And that’s the whole point of why he’s there.
There’s nothing unique about this situation. If the job is to cover the right from “inside the conservative movement,” that’s not actually happening. It’s like they put Weigel in a gorilla costume to infiltrate some gorillas in the mist and he stumbled into the wrong camp and is now reporting on activity completely unrelated to what actually matters. Never mind that the Washington Post’s online coverage of conservatives reflects a view that gorillas are more civilized than conservatives. And never mind that Weigel’s reporting is clouded with the groupthink you get among up-and-coming self-styled thinker/journalists who live together in D.C., are out to have an impact, but have never lived outside the clique.
Insular groupthink journalism isn’t just useless because it doesn’t talk about what’s really going on, but because it only exists to coo at the pet ideas of the epistemic closure elites, usually preceded by a Media Matters press release to help direct their path.
Sure, Dave Weigel is a nice guy. But don’t treat his reporting from “inside the conservative movement” as serious when he clearly is not on the inside. He’s there because of what he wrote for publications funded by Tim Gill and George Soros, he’s there to track the fringe, to make the fringe look like the middle, and to dig in on agenda-based topics which kowtow to the narrow views of DC elites. His smarter readers know that’s the case, and are just there to enjoy the ride — the only one who seems to think otherwise is the adolescent naif Ezra Klein, late of the Center for American Progress, who doesn’t have any journalistic incentive to be objective toward the right or even passably fair.
Dr. Clouthier writes:
Like Erick, I like Dave Weigel–in the same way I liked the trained Siberian Tigers at the Sigfried and Roy show: they look interesting and exotic, but are extraordinarily dangerous–as poor Roy learned the hard way. A journalist is a wild animal with an appetite for conservative meat and should be interacted with that way–always.
I do not expect Dave to be unbiased or fair. I do not expect him to defend a conservative point-of-view, ever, and therefore, I’m not disappointed or offended when he snaps off some pithy, demeaning, diminishing remark about conservatives or conservatism generally.
When he says something sufficiently irritating, I might respond, but mostly, I suppress the urge as it’s useless. Joking at a conservative’s expense and yucking it up is easy peasy. Everyone does it. So trendy.
So no, I don’t take Dave Weigel seriously. I think he’s a gifted writer and has interesting insight. He has an sophisticated mind and I enjoy talking to him. But he’s as ideologically left as the rest, he’s just willing to lower himself to hang with the natives from time to time. And he’s welcome to do so. Conservative people treat him with more kindness because he is willing to at least publicly view conservatives as a species of human. When it comes down to it though, his reporting sounds like reports from the out-back bush.
It would be fascinating to see what conservative, inside the conservative mind, reporting would look like. Too exotic for the Washington Post, that notion. Better stick with blogs.
Fascinating stuff, for sure. You can read more here.
Weigel is a phony, a fraud. I’ve never been a fan anyway, but it’s quite aggravating to see this clown try and pass himself off as one of us. (or at least claim to cover us “from the inside”) What’s despicable though is the way he attacked Sarah Palin for simply standing up for herself and her family when being assaulted by a deranged stalker. Tells you all you need to know about Dave Weigel.
Stay tuned, I’m sure there will be more to talk about as this saga continues
Video courtesy of PalinTV
Nearly 40 days in, our President finally addressed the American people’s growing concerns about the Gulf Coast oil spill. Listening to today’s press conference, you’d think the administration has been working with single-minded focus on the Gulf gusher since the start of the disaster. In reality, their focus has been anything but singular to help solve this monumental problem.
If the President really was fully focused on this issue from day one, why did it take nine whole days before the administration asked the Department of Defense for help in deploying equipment needed for the extreme depth spill site?
Why was Governor Jindal forced more than a month after the start of the disaster to go on national television to beg for materials needed to tackle the oil spill and for federal approval to build offshore sand barriers that are imperative to protect his state’s coastline?
Why was no mention of the spill made by our President for days on end while Americans waited to hear if he grasped the import of his leadership on this energy issue?
Why have several countries and competent organizations who offered help or expertise in dealing with the spill not even received a response back from the Unified Area Command to this day?
The President claimed that “this notion that somehow the federal government is somehow sitting on the sidelines and for the last three or four or five weeks we’ve just been letting BP make a whole bunch of decisions is simply not true.” But, in fact, that is how U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen described the Obama administration’s approach to this crisis: “We keep a close watch.”
Listening to the President, you get the impression he is continually surprised by the inability of various centralized government agencies to get more involved and help solve problems. His lack of executive experience might explain this because he is apparently unaware that it’s his job as a chief executive to make sure they do their jobs and help solve problems.
The fundamental problem at the core of this crisis is a lack of responsibility. (I risk the President taking my comments personally, but they’re not intended to be personal; my comments reflect what many others feel, and we just want to help him tackle this enormous spill problem.) There’s a culture of buck-passing at the heart of this administration that has caused the tragedy of a sunken oil rig to turn into a potential disaster.
The 1990 Oil Pollution Act was drafted in response to the Exxon-Valdez spill in my home state. It created new procedures for offshore cleanups, specifically putting the federal government in charge of such operations. The President should have used the authority granted by the OPA – immediately – to take control of the situation. That is a big part of what the OPA is for – to designate who is in charge so finger-pointing won’t disrupt efforts to just “plug the d#*! hole.” But instead of immediately engaging with this crisis, our President chose to spend precious time on political pet causes like haranguing the state of Arizona for doing what he himself was supposed to do – secure the nation’s border. He also spent much time fundraising and politicking for liberal candidates and causes while we waited for him to grasp the enormity of the Gulf spill.
Now that the American people are calling him out on his lack of engagement with this disaster, the buck-passing is in full swing – and, unbelievably, his administration is still looking to blame his predecessor. Amazingly, even those of us who support energy independence for America are the brunt of some buck-passing.
He suggested today that a “culture of corruption” at the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) was solely the previous administration’s responsibility and that the failure of the inspection system was a failure of that administration. That is false. The MMS has been his responsibility since January 20, 2009.
The MMS director who resigned today, Elizabeth Birnbaum, was appointed by his administration. And the most recent inspection of the oil rig took place a mere 10 days before the explosion – also very much on his watch, not President Bush’s.
The President is also now attempting to somehow distance himself from his administration’s recent decision to open a few areas of the continental shelf to oil and gas exploration. That’s unfortunate because America desperately needs our domestic oil and natural gas. We rely on it for our prosperity, security, and freedom. The President’s decision to open a few areas to offshore exploration was the right decision then; and unlike his quickly evolving position on energy development now, I continue to believe it’s the right decision today – because energy independence is in the long-term economic and security interests of the United States.
As I explained in an article in National Review last year, conventional sources like natural gas “can act as a clean ‘bridge fuel’ to a future when more renewable sources are available.” I do not, as the President mistakenly believes, think we can “drill, baby, drill” our way out of all of our troubles. As I have consistently stated, we need an “all of the above” approach to energy independence that combines conventional drilling with energy conservation and renewable-energy development. My record in Alaska clearly shows my commitment to this “all of the above” approach. Over 20 percent of Alaska’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources. As governor, I put forward a long-term plan to increase that figure to 50 percent by 2025, which is the most ambitious renewable energy target in the nation. I take great pride in helping to make Alaska, in the words of the New York Times, “a Frontier for Green Power,” even as we continue to embrace the need to “drill, baby, drill” at the same time.
Alaska can be that frontier for renewable energy only because our conventional oil and gas reserves provide us with “a bridge” to a greener energy future. In fact, Alaska has enough reserves of both oil and gas to help the United States cross that bridge – if only we are allowed to drill!
Please, Mr. President, hear me on this, if nothing else: if it’s your administration’s decision to suspend the leases of new oil field developments off the coast of Alaska in response to the Gulf’s deepwater spill, and you still remain committed to locking up ANWR and other oil-rich lands, please know you are making a mistake. Unless we continue to drill here and drill now, we risk digging ourselves deeper into the hole created by our continued dependence on foreign energy – which often comes from regimes that care nothing for our prosperity or security, and even less for global environmental safety.
We need affordable, reliable, secure, environmentally-sound, and domestically-produced energy, but this administration continues to lock up federal land filled with huge energy reserves. If there is to be a moratorium on offshore development, then it’s time we stop ignoring our safest options for domestic development – places like ANWR and NPR-A in my home state of Alaska.
And it’s time for the administration to stop passing the buck and get control of the disaster in the Gulf. There’s a reason why Harry Truman had that famous sign on his desk. The “buck stops” with the occupant of the Oval Office. When the American people elected President Obama they gave him responsibility to handle this disaster. He promised to “heal the earth, and watch the waters recede...” or something far-fetched like that. It was unbelievable then, it’s impossible now, but what I believe he meant was that he promised to be held accountable. With all due respect, Mr. President, you have a huge job in front of you. We hope you’re learning. Please learn that we must have domestic energy development, you must stop looking backward and blaming Bush, and we must all work together to “plug the d#*! hole.”
In the middle of putting together some updates on the continuing saga of Sarah Palin’s crazed, unethical stalker, I was forward this information that I think takes priority. We’ll have our planned follow-up posted later.
Sarah Palin announced on her Facebook page that Joe McGinniss, author of the infamous book Fatal Vision that chronicled the story of Jeffrey MacDonald, has rented the house right next door to hers. It seems he's chosen her has the subject of his next book. Lucky her. While she keeps the tone of her post upbeat and positive, it's clear she is disturbed to know that someone so hostile and antagonistic toward her is watching her and her family's every move.
Since Palin published her post, the blogosphere has been all atwitter about this development. Many people find it creepy. Those in the tried and true anti-Palin camp say she's the one who's out of line and criticize her for being "unprofessional and paranoid."
[ ....]
McGinniss' publisher responded with a statement that read in part:
"Well regarded for his in-depth, up-close reporting, Mr. McGinniss will be highly respectful of his subject's privacy as he investigates her public activities."
Well regarded? Highly respectful? I'd like to know which Joe McGinniss they're talking about because it isn't the Joe McGinniss who moved next door to Sarah Palin.
Let's take a look at how McGinniss put together his book Fatal Vision, the story about Jeffrey MacDonald, and see how well regarded and highly respectful he is.
Joe McGinniss was hired by MacDonald's defense team to write a book that would exonerate him. McGinniss, to research his book, became MacDonald's shadow during the trial. He had full access to every aspect of his defense. He even moved in with him for a while.
He became MacDonald's most loyal supporter. He wrote letters to him in which he professed his belief that he was innocent. Joe McGinniss gained MacDonald's confidence to the point that MacDonald opened his soul to him. He told McGinniss everything: about his relationship with his wife, his father in law, his kids. Everything. Through it all, McGinniss continued to tell MacDonald that he was on his side and that he would make sure the world knew of MacDonald's innocence. MacDonald was eventually convicted, but McGinniss remained loyal and told him to be patient until until the book came out because it would prove his innocence and the nation would rally to side
When the book was finally published, MacDonald realized he had been brutally deceived. McGinniss portrayed MacDonald as a psychopathic, enraged, drug crazed murderer. It turned out the entire time McGinniss fawned over MacDonald and told him how much he believed in his innocence, McGinniss was writing the exact opposite.
MacDonald was so disgusted at McGinniss' deception that he filed a federal lawsuit against him. During the course of the trial McGinniss admitted under oath during questioning by MacDonald's lawyer that he didn't even believe the theory he promoted in the book:
Fourteen years ago, Joe McGinniss's best-selling book, Fatal Vision, depicted MacDonald as guilty. McGinniss theorized that MacDonald had abused diet pills, had suffered a violent amphetamine psychosis, and in a fit of rage, had murdered his family because one of the children wet the bed. The book and the pursuant movie convinced millions that this actually occurred. Yet, in a sworn deposition on October 30, 1986, McGinniss, incredibly, admitted he did not personally believe his own theory. He explained, under oath, that he had introduced the diet pill theory as a dramatic device in his "new journalism" where the story is more important than the facts. When asked why he said that he'd learned MacDonald had ingested an overdose of diet pills (which he had not learned at all), he said he hadn't wanted to give his readers the same old "rehash of the trial."
McGinniss finally revealed his true feelings about his central theory, the theory that had made him rich, and had convinced millions of people that MacDonald was guilty. Under oath, during hard questions by MacDonald's attorney, he admitted, "I'm not convinced that it actually happened."
The trial ended in a 5-1 hung jury in MacDonald's favor. According to MacDonald's account, "the hold out juror had refused to deliberate after fellow jurors rebuffed her attempts to spend time listening to her views on animal rights."
McGinniss paid MacDonald $325,000 to avoid a retrial he knew he would surely lose.
Janet Malcolm wrote about MacDonald's law suit and Joe McGinniss' shocking duplicity in her book The Journalist and the Murderer.
In the early 90's Jerry Allen Potter and Fred Bost took up MacDonald's story and reexamined the case against him. What they found really was shocking. The authors, through Freedom of Information Act requests, learned that numerous documents, pieces of physical evidence, and witness testimony that supported MacDonald's account of what happened the night his family was murdered had been suppressed by the judge and the prosecution. Potter and Bost published it in their book Fatal Justice that outlines how Jeffrey MacDonald is innocent. The author of this San Francisco Chronicle book review detailed some of the evidence that was suppressed, and the details from this account alone are so damning that I could not help but yell at my computer screen, "why the hell is this man still in prison?" Take a look:
Relying on documents released under the Freedom of Information Act -- more than 10,000 pages of investigative reports, witness statements, affidavits, handwritten lab notes, transcripts, official letters and other documents, Potter and Bost deftly chart a snowballing chain of events leading to a virtual legal whiteout by the time of MacDonald's 1979 trial.
The authors say that key findings supporting MacDonald's version of events -- that a Manson-like group had committed the crimes -- were never presented to the jury. They found, for example, evidence of fresh candle wax drippings that did not match any candles in the home and were found precisely where MacDonald reported he saw flickering candlelight while struggling with his attackers; three bloodstained gloves; (the implication was that one person would not need three gloves, whereas four people likely would); blonde wig hairs found on a hairbrush (MacDonald said the candle was held by a blond woman in a floppy hat) and numerous unidentified fibers and hairs near the bodies of Kimberly, Kristen and Colette that did not match MacDonald's or anything in the home. In all, Bost and Potter describe in detail 21 items of physical evidence never presented in MacDonald's defense that clearly point to the presence of others. Among them: a bloody syringe and an unidentified piece of skin under Colette's fingernail that was extensively tested and subsequently disappeared when it did not match MacDonald's.
Potter and Bost document new witnesses, including neighbors in the building where the MacDonalds lived who remember sights and sounds on the night of the murder but were never interviewed by the Army. They also review the testimony of witnesses interviewed earlier -- most notably drug abuser Helena Stoeckley, who on at least six occasions revealed details of the murders that only someone involved could have known, such as the S shape poked into Kristen's chest with an ice pick. Stoeckley, who died in the early 1980s, said the S stood for ``Satan.'' Despite such confessions and a lack of alibi, Stoeckley and two of her companions, who fit descriptions provided by MacDonald, were never brought in for questioning.
``The army said the crime scene was well protected. It was not,'' say the authors. ``They said it was competently searched. It was not. They said they could prove the scene was staged by MacDonald. They did not. They said neighbors saw and heard nothing that night. Not true. The army and the government said nothing was found to support the presence of intruders at the scene. That was false. And, now that we know about the hair in Colette's hand, the bloody syringe, the multiple bloody gloves, the piece of skin, the wig hair, and the black wool fibers, this was the cruelest lie of all.''
After looking at the case, how it was handled, as well as the suppressed evidence, Alan Dershowitz, too, was convinced that the government suppressed critical amounts of evidence that would have proven MacDonald's innocence. He discussed the government's cover up in his book America on Trial. Judge Andrew Napolitano (yes, Judge Andrew Napolitano at Fox News) thinks the government framed MacDonald as well and wrote about the government's blatant misconduct in his book Lies the Government Told You.
MacDonald and his lawyers had the chance to appeal his conviction on March 23 of this year, and they may get a new trial because of this previously suppressed evidence. I hope he gets it, primarily because from where I sit, this is one of the most egregious examples of government abuse that I have ever seen (I would expect nothing less from China) and partly because I'd like to see McGinniss's book blow up in his face.
Now, if Joe McGinniss truly was the "well regarded" and "highly respectful" investigative journalist his publishing house said he is, why he didn't actually do the legwork MacDonald's defense team paid him to do and investigate and report MacDonald's story? The answer is obvious: a book about a handsome Army doctor who turned psychopathic and drug crazed and viciously murdered his beautiful - and pregnant - wife and two young daughters is far more compelling and sells far more books than a book about prosecutorial misconduct, as evidenced by the fact that many people have heard of Fatal Vision but few have heard of Fatal Justice.
All this makes it even more disturbing that McGinniss has now targeted Sarah Palin for the same kind of treatment he gave Jeffrey MacDonald. Even though Sarah Palin is in a position where she can defend herself against McGinniss's lies, whereas MacDonald could not, there are still a lot of people in this country who hate her and her family so much that they will believe anything negative about her, no matter how untrue.
What an unethical son-of-a-bitch Joe McGinnis is.
Man, this is simple proof that McGinnis is not only creepy, but a liar of the highest order that can’t be trusted by anyone. This is the sort of fellow that if it was high noon, and he told you the sun was shining, you’d be compelled to step outside to verify.
We have talked about the fact that McGinnis has been stalking Sarah for some time. We talked about his bidding $60,000 to have dinner with her. What we failed to mention is the fact that he pursued her on her book tour. McGinnis "broke" the story that Sarah Palin, as shocking as it sounds, flies on airplanes. This loon seemed shocked that Sarah Palin wasn’t on her tour bus 24/7 and wrote a hate filled, nonsensical piece about it.
You see, what this gutter snipe either couldn’t grasp, or in his zeal to smear Sarah, didn’t care, is the fact that Sarah’s schedule often saw her at a book signing in the morning, with afternoon and evening signings hundreds of miles apart. Many times it was simply impossible to go from one signing to the other by bus, because the distance was greater than the time allotted for travel would allow. As such, her publisher: HarperCollins provided air travel. Pretty standard stuff.
We’ve also learned that McGinniss, ignoring all sorts on "no trespassing" signs, actually showed up on Sarah’s doorstep trying to give her a book he had written. This is beyond creepy. It’s sick.
We are also learning more about the situation concerning the house he rented next door to Sarah, and how that came to be. We’ll have comments on this as well, once we have a better picture, but it seems to be yet another well orchestrated scheme by the Marxists to smear Sarah Palin.
The bottom line though is this. Joe McGinniss is a freak, and a liar. Joe McGinnis has a long history of being a freak and a liar. He has zero credibility whatsoever. One is compelled to think that every word that comes out of his mouth, or is put to the printed page by his hand, is an out and out lie, until proven otherwise.
May 25, 2010 at 4:18 PM Posted by Whitney The Pipsqueak
Upon reading Governor Palin's Facebook note regarding the Palin's new neighbor, Palin Derangement Syndrome sufferer, Joe McGinniss, late last night, my initial response was one of sarcasm. Governor Palin, you guys need to build a danged fence around your house! Todd deserves the medal of courageous restraint for not clobbering McGinniss when he met him. Governor Palin, you need to move to the White House now...for your own protection. Not to say that I did not feel outrage and sadness for the Palin family, but even Governor Palin used humor in her post, asking if she could call him Joe (as she did to Joe Biden during the VP debate). However, upon further thought, this is nothing to laugh about. Actually, this situation is an extremely sad commentary on both Joe McGinniss and the mainstream media as a whole.
Joe McGinniss is an author who writes true crime and non-fiction novels, most well known is his book about Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign that he wrote as a 26 year old. He has also written a book about a year traveling through Alaska published in 1980 and is currently writing an anti-Palin book due out next year. He has written several Palin hit pieces over the past year and a half. He wrote a piece for the no longer existent Conde Nast's Portfolio . This piece full of quotes from noted Palin detractors, and McGinniss called her Alaska's Eva Peron. The false claims made in this piece regarding McGinniss's assertions have been debunked here. McGinniss also made an attempt to win an auction for dinner with Governor Palin, the proceeds going to Ride2Recovery effort for combat victims (Cathy Maples won the auction). He bid on this auction event because he " would have enjoyed the opportunity for a frank exchange of views with Gov. Palin."
McGinniss has stopped by the Palin's home before in his "research" for his book prior to his move to the Palin's neighborhood, stopping by the Palin's home once last fall to drop off a copy of his book, Going to Extremes. A story published last November by the New York Daily News quoted McGinniss as saying, " I'm not intending to write a salacious book about Sarah Palin's sex life. But if it's true, I'll find out" (emphasis mine). McGinniss also spent significant time analyzing every move of Governor Palin's book tour over the winter, even stopping by at one of the book tour stops in Florida. He seems to be willing to go to the lengths of moving in next to the Palins to find that out. If that previous quote doesn't creep you out, the quote from McGinniss's son should:
Sadly, she's right. We tried our best to intervene, but alas, the heart wants what it wants. We can only pray for him now. He's convinced that Todd will step aside and when the time is right, he'll be there, right next door, to pick up the pieces.
Some have argued that this is a tongue-in-cheek comment from the younger McGinniss. Regardless, the lack of respect for a private citizen, the violation of privacy, and the sickening voyeurism that McGinniss is engaged in is beyond pale, and the desire to know the details about the Palins' marriage is despicable! While it is not illegal for McGinniss to rent the nearby property, it is certainly disturbing. If Todd and Sarah get into a minor argument over who takes out the garbage, McGinniss should not be privy to such things from the comfort of his porch. If Willow and Piper go out to the Lake to fish or swim, McGinniss should not be able to view such things. Regardless of the positive or negative slant of a book, it should be researched by analyzing news pieces, articles, and interviews, not by drinking a beer, laptop powered up sitting on your porch while peering at your neighbor's daily activities. While McGinniss's publisher claims he will respect Governor Palin's privacy while he "investigates her public life", his past behavior indicates the contrary.
McGinniss' publisher is RandomHouse. On his radio show today, Glenn Beck took RandomHouse and McGinniss down a peg and suggests not supporting RandomHouse while McGinniss is on the payroll:
If you would like to follow Beck in this, here is a list of RandomHouse's authors. Be forewarned, this means that you cannot read either President Clinton's or President Obama's books. You can also contact this publisher here .
Additionally, I have to say that this does not speak well of journalism today, not that we didn't know that already. Our press has no decency, objectivity, or basic research skills. Governor Palin's book got the fact checking treatment of 11 AP staffers.President Obama's 2010 State of the Union address only had 6 AP staffers scrutinizing it. You know, because a former Governor's book requires much more scrutiny than a sitting President's speech? We have an administration who has had time to play golf and watch the NBA playoffs, but not time enough to sufficiently address the spill in the Gulf. The administration has essentially ignored the problems in Oklahoma and Tennessee, yet the media turns a blind eye to the President's lack of attention. Despite having a "laser like focus" on jobs, the unemployment rate is still 2 points higher than they claimed it would be if they DIDN'T pass the bill. Our borders are not secure, and the administration doesn't care. They are too concerned about "human rights" violations. What? No one has an automatic "right" to be in a foreign country! Has the media chosen to focus on these things? No. They won't read the laws, analyze the effects of legislation, or appropriately cover tragedies! However, one man is willing to disrupt the life of a private citizen and her family to publish what will likely be a little read book. His efforts will be an exercise in futility, as the dirt he is looking for while only be found on the shoes of the Palin family after they return from summer outdoor activities. Journalism is beyond dead, and after reading Governor Palin's post, I have to say the Palins are among the most gracious people that I have ever seen.
