Voices from the Flats – Palin Critic’s Attorney on Being “Named” in Going Rogue
Governor Girl Agoniste
By Donald Craig Mitchell
Last July in Fairbanks, with Todd smiling at her side and Piper sitting in her lap, Sarah Palin watched Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell take the oath to fill out her term in office as Governor of Alaska. Then she vanished. For the past four months the Forty-Ninth State has seen neither hide nor hair of the woman. No speeches at chambers of commerce luncheons. No sightings on the street. No Sarah cheering on the sideline at Wasilla Warriors girls basketball games. No Sarah sitting in the pew on Sunday worshiping at the ChangePoint and Anchorage Baptist Temple evangelical mega churches. She’s been gone. Disappeared.
It now turns out that while Alaskans were hunkering down for winter Sarah was in San Diego working for a woman named Lynn Vincent, the ghostwriter HarperCollins hired to cobble together Going Rogue: An American Life, Sarah’s first person account of her it-only-would-happen-in-America rise from small town mayor to small state governor to Republican Vice Presidential candidate to popular culture icon.
Since Tuesday when Going Rogue was released nationwide copies of the book have been flying off the shelves at Barnes & Noble in Boise and Grand Rapids and not flying off the shelves in San Francisco and Seattle.
Since I already have enough to read, I had intended to give Going Rogue a pass until I had time this weekend to motor over to the Anchorage Barnes & Noble and give Ms. Vincent’s word-smithing a skim. But on Monday I learned that I’m in the book. Not surprisingly, that piqued my interest. And then yesterday a friend lent me a copy.
I’ve now read it. Here’s the review.
I usually begin reading a book that purports to be nonfiction by reading the index. But Going Rogue doesn’t have one. So I started with the acknowledgments section at the back of the book. In the first paragraph Sarah explains to her readers: “I’m very glad this writing exercise is over. I love to write, but not about myself. I’m thankful now to have kept journals about Alaska and my friends and family ever since I was a little girl. That practice allowed an orderly compilation over the past weeks and let me summarily wrap up at least some of my life so far.”
Sarah then thanks thirty-seven people (all but four only by his or her first name so that none of the rest of us have a clue who they are) before she thanks Lynn Vincent “for her indispensable help in getting the words on paper.”
If all that is read quickly, it leaves the veneer impression that Sarah wrote her book. But if read carefully that’s not what it says. “Help in getting the words on paper?” Too coy by half.
Decide for yourself when you do your own skim at your own local Barnes & Noble. But start to finish Going Rogue reads to me like Sarah sitting on the sofa in Lynn Vincent’s condo in San Diego, school girl diaries in her lap, talking hour after hour in her you-betcha patois into a computerized tape recorder like the ones court reporters use to record depositions. Then each afternoon when Sarah went off on her jog, Ms. Vincent would begin her real workday sitting at her computer editing and cut and pasting that day’s transcript of Sarah’s ramblings into a narrative.
I can’t prove that. But someone should ask Sarah if that’s how she “wrote” Going Rogue. Lynn Vincent would be a more reliable source. But, no surprise, her contract with HarperCollins contains a non-disclosure provision. Adam Bellow, Sarah’s editor at HarperCollins, also would know. But he for sure is not telling. At least until he has too much red wine during dinner at Elaine’s some night and lets the secret slip.
The book itself is a prosaic hagiography divided into three parts. Part one is Sarah’s autobiography from her birth in Sandpoint, Idaho, to her selection by John McCain as his running mate. Part two is Sarah’s story of her life on the road during the 2008 presidential campaign. Part three is a sanguinolent settling of accounts for the torment to which she was subjected in Alaska after the election – a torment so awful that it brought the operation of the entire executive branch of the government of the State of Alaska to a gridlocked halt and left Sarah no choice but to abandon her governorship in order to earn $5 million in four months talking into Lynn Vincent’s tape recorder.
If that three-part narrative has a unifying theme, the theme is that everything – and I mean everything – that has ever gone wrong for Sarah Palin was someone else’s fault.
Sarah’s lackluster performance during her interview with Frank Murkowski when she somehow made the short-list of candidates to succeed Frank in the U.S. Senate? That was Frank and his Attorney General, my friend Gregg Renkes’s, fault. The Troopergate scandal? Walt Monegan and the Democratic members of the Alaska Senate pulled that mean-spirited prank on a blameless Sarah. The nationally televised interview with Katie Couric that branded Sarah Palin as an ignorant and uneducated laughingstock? Katie sandbagged her. The fabulously disastrous Thanksgiving television interview when Governor Palin pardoned a turkey while in the background unpardoned turkeys were having their heads shoved down a funnel and their throats slit? Sandbagged again. That time by a local TV news cameraman.
Don’t take my word for it. Thumb through Going Rogue on your own. Page after page after page. It’s always someone else’s fault.
When discussing George Herbert Walker and Barbara Bush, Richard Nixon is reported to have said that George was a nice guy. “But his wife. That woman knows how to hate.” Since Dick meant that as a compliment, he would be impressed with Sarah’s penchant for settling scores. Because scattered throughout its content Going Rogue contains an enemies list as long as the list the nation’s Thirty-Seventh President and his henchmen compiled during the run-up to Watergate.
Sarah trashes Nick Carney (the Wasilla city councilman who recruited Sarah into politics), John Stein (Sarah’s predecessor as mayor of Wasilla), Anne Kilkenny (a Wasilla resident whose viral email educated the nation to Sarah’s lackluster record as mayor), an unnamed City of Wasilla librarian, Frank Murkowski (Sarah’s predecessor as Governor of Alaska), Gregg Renkes (Frank’s Attorney General), Lyda Green (the former President of the Alaska Senate), Hollis French (the chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Alaska Senate), Steve Schmidt (John McCain’s campaign manager), an unnamed KTUU television cameraman, Walt Monegan (Sarah’s Commissioner of Public Safety), Randy Ruedrich (the chairman of the Alaska Republican Party with whom Sarah worked at the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission), Bill Allen (the corpulent head of the oil field services company VECO, a odious scum bag whose reputation as the bag man for Big Oil in the state capitol had been a matter of common knowledge in Alaska for a generation when Sarah went with her hand out to Bill for the campaign contributions she used to launch her statewide political career), Mike Wooten (Sarah’s ex-brother-in-law), unnamed executives of the Exxon-Mobil, British Petroleum, and Conoco-Phillips oil companies, Pete Rouse (a former Alaskan who was Senator Barack Obama’s chief of staff), Rahm Emanuel (President Barack Obama’s chief of staff), Kim Elton (a former member of the Alaska Senate who is Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s Special Assistant for Alaska), unnamed members of the McCain campaign staff who prepped Sarah for her television debate with Joe Biden, John Bitney (Governor Palin’s liaison to the Alaska Legislature), Levi Johnston (the hockey-playing, Playgirl modeling impregnator of Bristol Palin).
That’s not the complete list. There’s no index and I’m tired of typing.
Of all the individuals on the Going Rogue enemies list, the two firsts among equals are Andrew Halcro and Andree McLeod.
Halcro is a former Republican member of the Alaska House of Representatives who ran as an independent candidate against Sarah Palin in the 2006 Alaska gubernatorial election. After the election he started a website that he used to become one of Governor Palin’s most articulate and factually well-informed critics.
It was Andrew Halcro who broke the story that Governor Palin had fired Walt Monegan, her Commissioner of Public Safety, because Walt had refused to fire Mike Wooten, Sarah’s ex-brother-in-law, from his union job as an Alaska State Trooper. That news led to the Troopergate investigation of Sarah (and Todd) Palin’s misuse of the Office of the Governor. In the Troopergate report that Sarah touts as clearing her of wrong-doing, the investigator, a former prosecutor with whom (unlike the Legislature’s investigator) Sarah cooperated, implies that during his investigation either Walt Monegan committed criminal perjury or Sarah Palin committed criminal perjury. But the Legislature had no stomach during the remainder of Sarah’s tenure as Governor to determine whether she was the felon.
In Going Rogue Sarah describes Andrew Halcro as “a wealthy, effete young chap who had taken over his father’s local Avis Rent A Car, and he starred in his own car commercial. He would go on to host a short-lived local radio show while blogging throughout the day, all of which were major steps up from a previous job as our limo driver at Todd’s cousin’s wedding.”
Andree McLeod is where I come in.
I am an attorney by trade and an historian of modest reputation by avocation. In 1987 I briefly convinced an Alaska Superior Court that it was a violation of the U.S. and Alaska Constitutions for the State of Alaska to have a campaign finance system that allows individuals who are not eligible to vote for a candidate to influence the candidate’s election by making campaign contributions. In 1998 I came within one vote of convincing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to uphold the constitutionality of an amendment to the Oregon Constitution that would have mandated a similar result. Over the years since, I have frequently represented individuals for a reduced fee or no fee in cases in which I think the public policy benefits merit my effort.
For that reason, I was not surprised in September 2008 when a friend called to ask if I would have a cup of coffee with a woman named Andree McLeod. By that date, I had been active in Alaska’s (small state) political life for thirty years. But my answer to that query was, “Who’s Andree McLeod?” But I went for coffee and discovered that Andree McLeod is a quite amazing woman.
Short, smart, politically committed, and tenaciously energetic, Andree McLeod is a Republican political activist of Armenian heritage who had once been a personal friend of Sarah Palin’s, who Sarah had endorsed when Andree ran in the Republican primary for a seat in the Alaska House of Representatives.
When I went to her home in east Anchorage to have my cup of coffee I found Andree sitting at her dining room table surrounded by two-foot-high stacks of paper print-outs of several thousand emails that the Office of the Governor had given to her in July in response to a request she had filed in June pursuant to the Alaska Public Records Act. The request had asked for emails that had been sent to or received by employees of the Office of the Governor who Andree suspected had been engaging in partisan – i.e., Alaska Republican Party – political activities during their public employee workdays. Andree submitted her public records request three months before anyone other than those of us in Alaska had ever heard of Sarah Palin.
The reason I had been invited to meet with Andree was that one of the things she had discovered by reading the emails was that when Governor Palin assumed office she had set up a private back-channel email system so that she and her senior staff could communicate with each other about state business without the content of their communications being “captured” by State of Alaska computer servers, and hence being available for public inspection pursuant to the Alaska Public Records Act. The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other national media would later report that story.
After researching the Alaska Public Records Act I concluded that, for reasons not worth detailing here, the private back-channel email system that Sarah had created was a violation of the Alaska Public Records Act. As a consequence, representing Andree McLeod, on October 1, 2008 I filed a lawsuit against Governor Palin in the Alaska Superior Court, the purpose of which is to obtain an order prohibiting state officials from using private email accounts to conduct state business.
The month after the McCain-Palin ticket lost the presidential election, again representing Andree McLeod, on December 8, 2008 I filed a second lawsuit against Governor Palin when a further review of the emails that Andree had been given revealed that the Office of the Governor had given to Todd Palin, a private citizen who was an employee of British Petroleum, copies of emails that it was withholding from public inspection on the ground of deliberative process privilege.
That litigation is ongoing. The legal questions of first impression that they present for decision are important enough that my expectation is that both lawsuits will end up in the Alaska Supreme Court.
What does any of that have to do with me and Going Rogue?
Prior to me agreeing to represent her in the two lawsuits above-described, Andree McLeod had begun filing what became a series of complaints against Sarah Palin with the State Personnel Board that alleged ethical transgressions unrelated to the lawsuits. Other Alaskans did the same thing. According to Going Rogue, those ethics complaints have driven Sarah Palin flat-out full-crank nuts.
After trashing Andree McLeod at page 354 of Going Rogue Lynn Vincent aka Sarah Palin moves on to me. Here’s what Lynn and Sarah say:
We always suspected that someone was funding and directing
Andree’s efforts. During the spring of 2009, she was actually still
begging my administration for a job and led others to believe she
hadn’t worked for a couple of years. Yet somehow she had enough
time or money to turn harassment of the governor’s office into a
full-time vocation. Over time, the wording of her ethics complaints
became more and more sophisticated, and we later found out why:
prominent liberal attorney Don Mitchell was advising her. As early as September 2008, weeks before the presidential election, Mitchell had already detailed the ethics attack strategy in an article in the Huffington Post. Later he sat with Andree as her counsel at one of her hearings.
I wish my late mother was still alive. Because I know how proud she would be that I made the Going Rogue enemies list and have been mentioned by name in a book whose first printing is 1.5 million copies. (Because he is not named, the mother of the KTUU cameraman who posed Sarah in front of the turkeys can take no such pride.)
But my number is listed in the Anchorage telephone book. If that failed, Lynn and Sarah could have googled “Donald Craig Mitchell.” And if that had failed, since Meg Stapleton, the increasingly strange combination of Sancho Panza and Odd Job who works for Sarah, and I have mutual friends, Meg could have found me quite easily.
Had Lynn Vincent, Sarah, or Meg called me before Lynn had finished writing Going Rogue, I would have told her that in a single paragraph Lynn/Sarah got almost every one of their facts about me, other than that I am an attorney, wrong.
While I probably once was, I haven’t been a “prominent” attorney in Alaska in years. While I am a registered Democrat, my personal politics are hardly “liberal.” To the extent anyone cares, I am a social libertarian who is an Eisenhower era deficit hawk who agrees with Teddy and Frank Roosevelt that the principal responsibility of government is to save capitalism from itself. And while during the presidential campaign several of my ‘Governor Girl Reports’ were posted by individuals other than me on the Huffington Post and Atlantic Monthly web sites, none of those musings “detailed an ethics attack strategy.”
But most importantly, not only have I never advised Andree regarding her ethics complaints, to the best of my recollection I have never read an Andree McLeod ethics complaint. Had Lynn, Sarah, or Meg called me, I also would have told them that neither Andree McLeod nor I have been paid a nickel by anyone for anything (although if I win either of my lawsuits I intend to send the Office of the Governor a bill for my attorneys fee, which under Alaska law I am permitted to do).
It is true, however, that, as Going Rogue reports, because she asked me to, I did accompany Andree to her interview with Tim Petumenos, the former prosecutor the State Personnel Board hired to investigate both the complaint Sarah filed against herself regarding the Troopergate affair and a complaint Andree filed against Sarah and Frank Bailey, Sarah’s Director of Boards and Commissions, for violating state civil service rules in order to give one of Sarah’s campaign supporters a job for which he was not qualified. Again to the best of my recollection, I have never read either complaint. And if he is asked, I think Tim will say that during his interview with Andree I pretty much just sat there.
It also is worth mentioning that the State Personnel Board found the ethics complaint that Andree McLeod filed against Frank Bailey meritorious.
Why should anyone care about any of that? The reason they should care is that if Lynn Vincent aka Sarah Palin got as many of the facts, asserted and implied, about me in Going Rogue as wrong as she did, what does that say about the validity of the many other, much more important, “facts” in Sarah’s book?
It’s fully fine by me that billions of federal tax dollars are being spent annually to invent an AIDS vaccine. But it is just as important to someday invent a Pinocchio serum.
If the world had one, before a faux celebrity like Sarah Palin writes a book, doctors from the CDC could roll up the celebrity’s sleeve and inject him or her with a jolt of the serum. And a serum also would have other important uses.
For example, on page 214 of Going Rogue Lynn Vincent reports that when the McCain campaign vetted Sarah, she confessed to Steve Schmidt, the manager of the campaign, that “the one skeleton I’d kept hidden in my closet” (my emphasis) was that she had gotten a D in a college course.
Had Sarah been shot up with Pinocchio serum prior to the vetting, the immediate growth of the length of her nose would have tipped off Schmidt that the more truthful answer to the one skeleton in the closet question would have been, as The National Enquirer subsequently reported with no push back from Team Sarah, “cuckolding Todd when he was working on the North Slope by hooking up with Brad Hanson, Todd’s business partner in the Polaris snow machine sales business Brad and Todd owned in Wasilla.”
Once perfected, Pinocchio serum also would be useful to find out whether Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell really supports health care reform and, before the United States sends more troops there, whether Hamid Karsai really is committed to rooting out corruption in Afghanistan. But before a Pinocchio serum can be widely used, the FDA would need to conduct a clinical trial. Shooting up Sarah while she’s still on her book tour would be a good first test of the potion’s efficacy.
[This article is cross-posted at the Huffington Post]
Oh. My.
What an impressive example of throwing down the gauntlet.
Popcorn, anyone?
What a nice bit of literary and political commentary! This is a marvelous example of how a small and admittedly personal example can be used to illuminate much larger and more universally important questions. When you’re ready to submit it as an op-ed commentary, I’d be happy to edit this lovely piece. (It does need a little editing for clarity, and editors’ hourly rates are much better than lawyers’ rates.)
wow!
Fabulous! thank you.
Mitchell isn’t the first to call Rogue a hagiography. Just in case it really did mean biography of a hag, I checked.
1.Biography of saints.
2.A worshipful or idealizing biography.
Yup.
Most precise. Dang fine lawyer, you betcha.
Questions: Why wouldn’t the attorney representing McLeod in lawsuits also read her ethics complaints? Or advise on ethics filings, especially since he wasn’t paid anything?
And the cuckolding bombshell at the end — proof?
That’s what appeared in the National Enquirer after they were up here for a while poking around. AKM
omg
Wow again! Thank you!
This sums up Sarah.
“while Alaskans were hunkering down for winter Sarah was in San Diego working for a woman named Lynn Vincent”
She sold her soul and was assigned a Dark Mistress in a very hot place.
KAZAAAMMM!!! POW!!!! That’s some hard hittin’ writin’….I hope this gets broader play in the national media or the series of tubes.
Mr. Mitchell, you have correctly added to the knowledge that those of us in the rest of the country have known since last fall–Sarah Palin is a pathological liar, twister of factless “information” and embroiderer of the truth. In fact, she’s like a word loom which gives a peculiar pattern and warp. And we even know how she kicks both enemies and former “friends” (does she have any who aren’t paid these days?) to the curb who are no longer useful to her.
The good news is that soon there won’t be anyone left, esp. in AK, whose good reputation she can destroy. Let’s hope Andree McLeod is victorious in the Supreme Court up there. Thank you for your contributions to the people of AK and let’s hope this is a lesson in electoral politics for them. None of us, in any of the 50 states, should be subjected to any unethical megalomaniac whose ultimate interest is simply fame and fortune, not the people of that state, and who will do anything and harm anyone in achieving that goal. For myself, I hope this outright prevaricator will soon fade from the public view.
he, he…Sarah, you’re not in Oz anymore sweetie…karma is a b!tch once you dare to step back into Alaska.
What a great essay!
Thank you for taking the time and effort to set the record straight. I hope your account is included in some way, in the book Geoffrey Dunn is writing.
Pinocchio serum – that’s just as perfect as it gets. Way to go rogue right back atcha, Mr. Mitchell!
I appreciate your rebuttal since we are all watching this train wreck to be pick up speed. Her intentions are “just plain evil” in light of her demagoguery methods. I suppose we now need a Pinocchio Death Panel? I would be honored to sit or chair! Ha!
Wow! If only we could get it on the nightly news shows.
Thank You Sir, for giving us your take on her wood pulp political platform.
Great post. Many entertaining bits, but this has to be my favorite:
“Meg Stapleton, the increasingly strange combination of Sancho Panza and Odd Job who works for Sarah …”
sanguinolent … I had to look that up, although I had a suspicion. Not in SP’s vocab.
Ba-zinga! Great piece. Thank you.
Anyone who makes the preemptive statement about having only one skeleton in her closet, pretty much just admitted that they have more. An “innocent” person wouldn’t feel the need to say anything.
How is it that there aren’t more people in Alaskan who are willing to speak the truth about Sarah’s web of lies? Don’t they realize that the chicken has flown the coop, takin’ all her cash with her.
The stonewalling of Palin’s emails is pretty obvious by now. Maybe Parnell is hiding them because they implicate him. Just sayin’. Follow the money.
HMMM – methinks this is but the first rebuttal of the “facts” of “Going Rogue”. The dam is about to burst. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell!
Thank you Mr. Mitchell. Not just for this insightful article/essay, but for defending the Alaska Publc Records Act.
Very informative!
MsQuitter fails to understand that if she lies constantly – nobody will believe a word she says – that is if they can understand her “Palinese Word Salad”
Wow, Mr. Mitchell, what a great post! I hope it makes it to HufPo as everyone should read it. As Mr. Halcro said on Shannyn’s TV show, Palin demonizes everyone who doesn’t agree with her. It seem to me her “enemies” are more intelligent and better educated than she is.
Hmmmmm. So when does the libel lawsuit start?
OMG. Sarah ’s admission of getting a “D” in college, is my popcorn. Wow. Thankyou thankyou.
SP has pants on fire for sure.
Albert @ 17 - I also had to look it up, not something I do too often with words, but here it is:
san⋅guin⋅o⋅lent [sang-gwin-l-uhnt] Show IPA
–adjective
1. of or pertaining to blood.
2. containing or tinged with blood; bloody.
Origin:
1400–50; < L sanguinolentus, equiv. to sanguin- s. of sanguis blood + -olentus earlier form of -ulentus -ulent
Related forms:
san⋅guin⋅o⋅len⋅cy, noun
Jane @ 6 - if she hired him solely on the “lawsuits” then he has no obligation to represent her on the ethics matters. Businesses often use different law offices and attorneys to represent them on various matters. But none of the lawyers hired for one matter is obligated to do any work on a different matter (indeed, there might be an attorney-client privilege at issue in many of those instances).
Nor should the client expect that if she hired an attorney for a real estate matter that he would also just pick up and/or draft her family wills. These things are different with the only obligation the matter for which the attorney was hired by the client. Paying or pro bono .
What a beautifully written a$$ kicking. Thank you!
Loved this. The problem with writing about Sarah is that there are so many lies, so many misleading myths already accepted (even among liberals) that you have to spend all of your time correcting commonly accepted interpretations of events, which can bore the average reader. I suspect this is how she got away with this for so long.
This is something AKM has done so well here; she finds a light and yet precise and factual way of cutting through the baloney. Not an easy task.
After much thinking and pondering (and just plain being stunned by the audacity of her lies and fictional accounts of reality), I came to the conclusion that she is the radical right’s weapon of mass destruction. Nicely packaged christian political p0 rn, hiding the ugly agenda underneath. Not the joke many independents think she is.
OT, but Shannyn’s show was a great shot into the myth. Quite rewarding to see honest Alaskans who stood up to Palin with great courage finally get the chance to speak OUT and be heard.
Great job, AKM. As always.
@Kate in Canada; It’s quite satisfying that many are referring to her book as hagiography; I’m pleased to say I jumped on that band wagon last week. I read it somewhere and thought it the perfect Palin description. It really sums up her entire approach and world view, IMHO. She is the Saint, we (facts, liberals, opposition, reality) the Sinners.
Whuuuu…{;(0)….KARMA
Well, she admits to one “D” in college, but what about all those”Incompletes”?
: )
Excellent article. What Scarah should realize is that when everything is someone else’s fault, you give away your power. If it’s always someone else who makes you fail, then it’s also always someone else who makes you succeed. You are merely an easily manipulated puppet.
This piece needs to be in all the metropolitan city newspapers so the educated elite can read it. People who read and understand it, will speak to others about the content.
Very nice writing — detailed and easy to follow.
Is Andree McLeod the same person who Scarah made some racist “falafel” reference to?
That was incredibly rude…but SOOOO Sarah-esque.
She’s been accused of being a race-baiter, Lock Pepper… why would S-Error change now?
Kelley, good point! Also too, one cannot be a “victim” and be good leaders.
Look at great leaders throughout history. Not one of them is/was a “victim”.
Thank you, Mr Mitchell, for presenting one of the most eloquent defenses of the need for “fact-checking” that is underway among many of the skeptical readers of the Vincent-Palin book. Your short sampling of the misstatements about yourself should make all readers question how much of the rest of this tome amounts to nothing more than entertaining revisionist history.
Oh, and yours was the best description of Meg Stapletongue yet !!
Great piece…Thanks for sharing.
Just another confirmation into my conviction that this is one mean person who is vindictive and hateful…
I dont think she has those who can read and think fooled at all…just look at where her books are selling and where they are not
Amazing read… and the fact checking just keeps on coming…
Any chance of libel charges being able to be brought against the Sarah Palin Screed??
ok, i reread the mr mitchell’s posting. is he saying what i think he is saying here?”
“Had Sarah been shot up with Pinocchio serum prior to the vetting, the immediate growth of the length of her nose would have tipped off Schmidt that the more truthful answer to the one skeleton in the closet question would have been, as The National Enquirer subsequently reported with no push back from Team Sarah, “cuckolding Todd when he was working on the North Slope by hooking up with Brad Hanson, Todd’s business partner in the Polaris snow machine sales business Brad and Todd owned in Wasilla.”
Brilliant. Now that’s writing. And thanks for teaching me that there are Alaskans who know words I don’t know.
Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Beautifully done.
38
fawnskin mudpuppy Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 PM
ok, i reread the mr mitchell’s posting. is he saying what i think he is saying here?”
You betcha!
I had to laugh when I read, via others, that Andree McLeod’ s complaints were better written as time went on.
All I could think of is palin’s Face book pronouncements and her WSJ editorials.
How could anybody believe that palin wrote/writes these? Who is write these for her?
All you have to do is listen to her in a conversation and her “guttural instincts” are loud and clear. Don’t ask what that means, it’s what she said on bill’s show!
FANTASTIC! I wish you could get this published – on Huffington or in any newspaper as an op/ed. Please consider submitting it……I wish many more people who were discredited in Sarah’s book would come forward like this.
How ridiculous and childish for a politician to blame every one, but take no responsibility herself.
There is something very seriously wrong with Sarah Palin. It might be sad or interesting, but she is dangerous. And these are people with lives and careers and she is trying to destroy/discredit many with lies in her book. She not only is getting away with it, she is earning millions of dollars.
All of you who were discredited should put together a class action suit against her for libel. I am not a lawyer but something has got to wake up people who don’t realize how scary dangerous Sarah is. There are many people who think she is a crackpot and / or fringe, but they don’t realize the extent of it and how sinister it is.
Thanks
One thing I would hope is that everyone who is named and blamed in her book will either appear on tv and make Sarah respond to their truths or write their own books with the truths.
Although, those who love her will only believe her and feel that she is being picked on because she is a strong woman…so strong that she quit her beloved state of Alaska…what a waste she is…
Will her 15 minutes of fame ever stop???
I am tired of her word salad and that smile and wink and where did she get that accent????
If you are having trouble triggering your Bulemia reflex, watch this video.
No comments either necessary or possible.
http://archivist1000.blogspot.com/2009/11/thats-not-breath-of-fresh-air-that-is.html
So many lies, so little time …. I suppose the college “D” was the only skeleton in her closet, because all the other misdeeds counted as fresh corpses.
Thank you Mr. Mitchell.
I was actually waiting for this, and Mr. Mitchell, you delivered.
The extent and level of vindictiveness Sarah Palin used in this book will not end well for her.
As a professional historian I grant that this will become a historic piece in the rebuilding of buttercup’s image! Excellent job sir.
6 Jane in NC Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:10 PM
Questions: Why wouldn’t the attorney representing McLeod in lawsuits also read her ethics complaints? Or advise on ethics filings, especially since he wasn’t paid anything?
And the cuckolding bombshell at the end — proof?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We deal with a law firm that looks after our business and personal needs.
Our main attorney is a partner in the firm, who directs us to what lawyer in the firm has the expertise to deal with whatever need we may have.
If it is a matter of a simple legal filing, then an articulating student does it.
All of the lawyers we have dealt with over the years know nothing of what the others do for us.
They are too busy with other clients for one thing and they have no need to go to our main file to check what other lawyers may have done for us.
As far as the particulars go, it is between us and the individual lawyer as privileged information, overseen by our main attorney.
In other words lawyers have livelihoods and lives ………they sure don’t have time to know the particulars, nor may they be privileged to know every single legal aspect, of everything ,that EVERY CLIENT THEY HAVE EVER HAD might be, or have been, involved in….geez!
Proof is not necessary to report what magazines or newspapers print as their “stories”.
You should ask the National Inquirer.
Oh Snaaaap!
Thank you, Mr. Mitchell!
Can’t someone feed the pages of SP’s book into a scanner and create an index? I know there’s automatic footnote software available, I used some in grad school. An index to accompany “Going Rogue” may fetch a penny or two from SP’s faithful on eBay.
I wonder, with so many people maligned by Queen Mystery of Babble-on’s Book of Revenge, would there be the basis for a class-action filing?
You should all go comment on HuffPo to bring the story forward.
Kudos to you Mr. Mitchell! I’d love to see some of the others who were thrown under Saint Sarah’s bus to come forward with their own truth to refute the lies in the book.
Now, who was/wasn’t born around 1996 in Sarah’s world?
Fawnskin mudpuppy:
Yes, it was a quote from the Nat’l Enquirer (from some months ago).
Kelley (30ish)
“when everything is someone else’s fault, you give away your power. ”
That was fantastic. And it’s something I haven’t seen addressed anywhere, until you said it just now.
Love it.
This should be on Huffingtonpost. Glad you wrote a rebuttal to all her lies. More people named in her book need to stand up and call ‘liar!’.
Thank you!
Mr. Mitchell – There’s just something about the truth – the sound, the pattern of, the earnestness of truthiness.
Ms. Palin – Untruth has such a hollow ring, dark and well…evil. But to those who truly desire to believe – it IS their truth.
Thanks for stepping out there, sir, you’ve just guaranteed yourself an appearance in Book 2 of the Sarah Chronicles also!
Wow!! Just WOW!! This woman and her minions both anger me and scare me to death.
I’ve been astonished that the public records laws may have been insufficient–and Palin and her staff could get away with ignoring them. Hollis French seemed to indicate the laws needed further revision. How much more will we need to revise before they become useful?
For years there have been explicit instructions on the State’s website, for state employees, about public records laws and how they apply to state business emails. The instructions seem clear.
The Department of Law may have played a huge role suppressing public records from Alaskans. If so, they should be held accountable– and perhaps someday they will be held accountable. I wonder if this suppression of records could have happened without the Department of Law’s help.
This should go on every blog in the cyberworld!
Excellent.
Well. Ahem. I guess when you push through an open door (paraphrasing Sarah), you never know what skeletons are going to fall out.
Ouch.
Appreciation to Mr. Mitchell and Andree with regard to Palin! So few have stood up to her and the press is especially at fault. I cannot believe she gets away w/Facebook entries that are reported daily, when we are not even sure they are written by her, and I totally expect they ARE NOT.
Hiding behind a curtain to sign her books was reported and photographed today which I find weird. This woman is nuts!!! Thank God, she gave us her greatest present ever in resigning as governor. She does not even deserve being referred to as Governor of Alaska!
Nicely done! Thanks for the information Don..
This article has been cross posted on HP now! So go make some comments/buzz it up!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/akmuckraker/attorney-of-palin-critic_b_368301.html
That may be the longest winded “You Lie” I have ever read. Mr. Mitchell is a lawyer and he does substantiate his statements.
Any body and everybody who is trying to hold Sarah to the truth is welcome.
I am surpassed that Harper Collins would not have done some fact checking on their own. Insulting people and simultaneously lying can get pretty expensive.
Mr. Mitchell, I suspect your mom would be pretty proud even without the index.
Parnell and the Department of Law may be suppressing Palin administration public records.
The next Alaska governor election is less than a year away. Democratic candidates should be complaining– why can’t Alaskans access their own government’s records? Does Parnell believe in open government? What is he hiding?
And not just any hagiography but a self worshiping auto-hagiography.
First off Jane in NC Why would he read her ethics complaints they were hers and she wrote them unlike SP wrote this book. As for the national Enquirer and the article about her affair with Hanson remember they were right about Edwards now weren’t they.People laughed that one off too.
I meant to say a few articles back don’t give Wisconsin credit for palins speech impediments no way do we talk like her No way in He– We speak plain English with out the winks and gotchas
I think this one is a definite send to Rachel Maddow. I’ll see if I can do that. OMG.
Great article Mr Mitchell ,hopefully more people will come out of the closet and speak up,she can’t get everyone.
Thank you for the informative, well-written and entertaining piece. Congratulations on making Sarah’s list of enemies, most of whom were unnamed. You’re in good company.
Condolences on the loss of your mother.
I agree that Gov. Parnell (and the Dept of Law, under Parnell) should held accountable for breaking the law. At this point, the lies and excuses just don’t cut it. They are covering for her and stonewalling. But, why? What kind of dealmaking went on between Parnell and Palin to keep this information hidden from the public?
Some serious public pressure needs to put on him. If he wants to stay in office for another term, he needs to separate himself from the lies of Palin. It’s becoming very clear that Palin is serial liar. Is he?
32 Lock Pepper in Honolulu Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:53 PM
Is Andree McLeod the same person who Scarah made some racist “falafel” reference to?
That was incredibly rude…but SOOOO Sarah-esque.
Yes. And she is another who helped Sarah and who Sarah casually tossed off the bridge.
geezuz! why are attorneys always so longwinded?
38 fawnskin mudpuppy Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 PM
ok, i reread the mr mitchell’s posting. is he saying what i think he is saying here?”
Being a lawyer we can probably assume that he would not stick his neck out and -even though it is Shannynesque in that he is repeating someone else’s claim – put himself in jeopardy.
What you want to bet van Flein threatens a law suit? If van Flein then backs off the threat it would be a pretty strong indication that the “rumor” had some basis in fact.
I do wonder if Mr. Mitchell is baiting Sarah.
A question for Mr. Mitchell and/or any other lawyer who would like to offer an opinion: If someone is seriously misrepresented in Sarah’s book, is there any legal recourse, a law suit for damages, or something to request that Harper Collins stop publishing lies. Just wondering?
Great article Mr. Mitchell. Please, can someone get this person out of my life.
45 Chaim Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:22 PM
So many lies, so little time …. I suppose the college “D” was the only skeleton in her closet, because all the other misdeeds counted as fresh corpses.
Wellsaid. She is kind of like a reenactment of Sherman’s march to the sea.
Andrew Sullivan just linked here. It’s going to get the coverage it deserves.
Glad to hear that Andrew Sullivan has linked to here. I sent the link to Rachel Maddow (told her that I am an admirer but have never contacted her one-to-one before, but that this one is a must read for her and maybe she might want to interview this lawyer on her program).
mae lewis: that’s what I have been wondering. When is a suit of libel justified? And given that there is so much of the lies in the book, maybe some of these people just figure it is not worth it? I don’t know. I think she is a pathological liar. I really think that she believes the things she says to be the truth even when today what she says is the opposite of what she said yesterday.
Expect her FB and those other sites to ‘go off the edge’ when they read this.
As she is back on Twitter as she travels, should be interesting to see if a full response ends up on FB. RAM back in business?
If you aren’t aware, Greta’s been on the bus too. She’s supposed to be doing a story on her show tonight.
It’s the Netroots Nation in action… The bloggers are linkin’ and not blinkin’, maybe winkin’…
check out this article on another McCain adviser outing buttercup!
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29847.html
1) First and most importantly….intelligent, elegant, and restrained slap down to Palin’s (aka “Brains to Nowhere”) lies, Mr. Mitchell.
2) “The book itself is a prosaic hagiography….” What else would a megalomaniac narcissist write?
3) “Meg Stapleton, the increasingly strange combination of Sancho Panza and Odd Job who works for Sarah….”
Sancho Panza: “Now that I’ve to be sitting on a bare board, does your worship want to flay my bum?”
You nailed it, Mr. Mitchell. BTW…Has it gotten to the bum-flaying stage, Meggie? Pity the poor fool when it does…
4) “Part three is a sanguinolent settling of accounts for the torment to which she was subjected in Alaska after the election…” Ahhh, yes…..the bloody saliva issuing from Palin’s maw….and it isn’t her blood. Whereby “guttural instincts” are confused with visceral imperatives….as in “I likes them raaawww.” ( gutturally uttered, Ms. Palin).
Some of you folks who have broken down and purchased Sarah’s drivel, please type up a page and let us know at what grade level it is written. They have those programs that examine the writing and give the grade level. Must guess would be it is written on a ninth grade level.
Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. I love a cogent rebuttal.
@84 MO Inkslinger- I wouldn’t give her book a ninth grade level, more like sixth grade. I’ve only read the published excerpts. I remember “The Yearling” was required seventh grade reading back in junior high.
addendum:
“I likes them raaawww.” ( properly cited: the trolls in “The Hobbit”)
On ET, Mary Hart spoke of Palin’s book, and she also mentioned and showed the cover of Going Rouge having just been released! Mary Hart also mentioned the paper doll with cutouts that they also showed the page!!
73 Marnie Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:40 PM
38 fawnskin mudpuppy Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 PM
ok, i reread the mr mitchell’s posting. is he saying what i think he is saying here?” (snip)
“I do wonder if Mr. Mitchell is baiting Sarah.”
———————————-
Ya think? The sting of the scorpion is always at the tail end…..
DaisyDem – here you go…….and anyone else who wants to email Rachel:
Rachel@MSNBC.com
There is an index to Going Rogue, albeit unauthorized:
http://www.slate.com/id/2235917/
I’m amazed he linked the National Enquirer article… hmmmm?
I’ve always thought that unless more evidence comes forward she lied about the amniotic fluid leaking and Trig is her’s and not Bristol’s. But this makes me wonder: Is it her’s and Todd’s? Could this be Levi’s big secret? He knows she was cheating.
I’m reminded of the great wisdom of George Costanza, when he was advising his friend Jerry Seinfeld about fibbing: “Remember, Jerry, it’s not a lie … if you believe it.”
ds55 Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:35 PM
Can’t someone feed the pages of SP’s book into a scanner and create an index? I know there’s automatic footnote software available, I used some in grad school. An index to accompany “Going Rogue” may fetch a penny or two from SP’s faithful on eBay.
—–\\
There are online companion indexes that have been created… just google “Going Rogue Index”
I have given up. It is too hard too be a moderator, and not biased!
But I will try.
#
94
Irishgirl Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:49 PM
I have given up. It is too hard too be a moderator, and not biased!
#
95
Irishgirl Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:52 PM
But I will try.
———
And succeed admirably, I’m sure.
Yes…the cross-post @ HuffPo is being heavily moderated, which begs the question, Why? is it so hard to get the TRUTH out when the MSM flippantly and complicitly advances the mega-lies of Sister Sayrah?
Omigoodness – I’ve not yet read any of the comments because I’ve not yet even read past this precious bit :
*** Part three is a sanguinolent settling of accounts for the torment to which she was subjected in Alaska after the election – a torment so awful that it brought the operation of the entire executive branch of the government of the State of Alaska to a gridlocked halt and left Sarah no choice but to abandon her governorship in order to earn $5 million in four months talking into Lynn Vincent’s tape recorder.***
Before going any further I just had to jump in to say, ” Thank you, Donald Craig Mitchell. This is fabulous!”
Ok – back to the reading.
Chaim Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:22 PM
So many lies, so little time …. I suppose the college “D” was the only skeleton in her closet, because all the other misdeeds counted as fresh corpses.
====
GOOD one! This was so apt and funny that I thought it was part of the orig. post. Thanks for the chuckle.
WOW! oh effin’ wow. Articulate, intelligent, and payback in one commentary. LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!!
ds55 – here is a thorough idex for you:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-21/going-rogue-the-index/
Well done!
Response #84 re: Reading level assessment.
Anyone with a copy of the book can use this assessment.
http://www.sph.emory.edu/WELLNESS/reading.html
It’s a pretty good one, very basic. But, it isn’t all that in-depth. Hope this helps.
I will take time tomorrow to do my part towards getting this piece circulated. Thank you Donald!
I think the whole point of Mitchell’s long rebuttal is to explain that in a single paragraph Palin/Vincent managed to get at least 5 facts wrong.
And it clearly wasn’t a case of simple errant non-fact-checking. No, it was about making the case that Saint Sarah wasn’t having ethic complaints filed against her in record numbers because she was, gasp, unethical. No it was because Andrea McLeod was being funded by a prominent liberal Alaskan attorney with fair deeper ulterior motives than the simple FACT that Andrea McLeod found many of Sarah Palin’s actions as governor to be in direct violation of the Alaskan Ethics code.
I also love that Mitchell threw that zinger there at the end because let’s face it, email transgressions is sort of boring. But a family-value, right-wing conservative, mother-of-5, hockey Mom and GOOD Christian cheating on her hunky husband – well that’s the kind of stuff that will make even “real” America will sit up and take notice.
I can’t wait to hear the return fire, or maybe she will ignore it in hopes that by not acknowledging it, it will go away. Either way, her response will be interesting. What are the chances she’ll let Stapletongue loose for a reply? Off the subject, I would love to see her fire Stapletongue to see what all else she might release on Sarah. I imagine Stapletongue has a job for life, or at least until Sarah can not longer make money during her glory days.
I usually comment before reading what everyone else has to say. But it’s hardly a surprise that I’m in the minority!
Look. Other than the obvious straightening of the record, the writer draws our attention to the fact that we are ignorant of his motives. This is a classic red flag. When the facts of his professional involvement are misreported, he responds by repeating personal slander. His close is an insinuating suggestion using violent phrasing.
It’s lots of fun and educational to boot, to indulge in another round of kick-the-sarah. She so deserves it, etc.
But as responsible adults we have to be aware of just what it is we are approving. We have to recognize when a personality with less than perfect balance uses our understandable bias to slip in his own agenda, to persuade us to an untenable position.
This went beyond payback. That should be acknowledged.
@oregonbird
and we are ignorant of his motives how?
In brilliant lawyerly language step by step and word for word, it is an elegant rebuttal to pages and pages of innuendo and deceit.
As far as the ending? I think one of the nasty elephants in the room has had its presence acknowledged – no violence there. And the truth serum scenario? A harmless little imagining not unlike the rainbow farting Ms. Palin.
Whoa whoa……Mr. Mitchell!!
OO……Mr. Mitchell has a spine!
“…Cuckolding Todd with Brad Hanson”????……….
Sure no pushback when it was published in the National Enquirer, but,
what WILL Ms. Palin say to this NOW?
WTG Mr. Mitchell!! Let it all come out….all of it…….it looks like her fellow Alaskans have H A D I T ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Oregonbird, and she didn’t go beyond payback! He has written nothing beyond what she has and she spent the good part of a whole book gettting back at others she blames instead of acknowledging her lack of qualifications. She is pandering to her wingnut supporters to sell a book inorder to make a lots of money. Who failed the people who elected her to office and then goes out and selfishly makes money for herself while she still could do so.
They are scrubbing comments at hufpo as usual. I changed lies to errors in my comment and it went through. And yet another Queen Arianna snottyfest about the President. She sure thinks she is clever.
One lawyer to another, WTG!
AKM hope you consider submitting this to HuffPo
“An American Life.” Bozo the Clown had an American life too. So much for your perverse sense of nobility and import, Palin. The woman is a study in transcendent political lunacy and self-indulgence of the highest order…and nothing beyond that.
ruh roh…didn’t not read very bottom…sorry
Sarah Palin vs. Darth Oprah
Mbaker: I don’t base my behavior or ethics on the lowest denominator that someone else can manage. Most of the outrage against Palin is based on the hopeful fact that she acts outside the rules and norms of acceptable behavior. I see no merit (including literary) in escalating the stakes by using highly personal slander to retaliate against an insult to a man’s profession. Palin went down the list and slagged everyone she could remember — that *doesn’t* excuse or vindicate advocating violence against her. I’m just strange that way.
Oregonbird – I don’t see advocating violence. Are you referring to this?
“But before a Pinocchio serum can be widely used, the FDA would need to conduct a clinical trial. Shooting up Sarah while she’s still on her book tour would be a good first test of the potion’s efficacy.”
He’s talking about shooting Ms. Palin up with the Pinocchio truth serum.
By Palin doing her ‘name calling’ by tossing out what equates to a few sentences as she truly has never had the desire to write or speak truthfully, it warrants the various people who were involved in that particular matter to set out what the facts are.
Does she deserve to be swatted back – definitely.
The disappointing part of it – those that follow her have no interest in truth or facts either. I guess it’s like the left and right side of the brains work differently as if I floated throw life like they do — I’d take myself out to a pasture and shoot myself. I can’t imagine being like that.
Thank you Mr. Mitchell! I loved every word!
and as a side note… I just for the life of me can’t understand why all those folks are buying Sarah’s book. Everyone knows her loyal fans can’t read. Just listen to them struggle to say why they support her……
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/23/palin-supporters-struggle_n_367800.html
Seagull: So the reasoning we brought to the task of determining that a sign reading “Get The RED Out Of The White House” was actually racist, rather than a rejection of communism, is now unnecessary? I’ve never subscribed to the meme ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ I read a contract before I sign it, and I pay attention to context and tone. When someone on “the other side” writes an article, I suspect you do the same.
History reports that Henry II never ordered the death of Thomas Beckett… he just suggested that the continued existence of the man proved that Henry was surrounded by traitors. O’Reilly never told any right-to-lifer that an armed visit to Dr. Tiller’s church would be a good idea… he just suggested that the man was better off dead. I’m not a fan of veiled suggestion; it works. So I’m not going to look at an inflammatory sentence and say — oh, it’s all about a famous children’s character!
I’m going to call an elephant an elephant. So to speak.
Someone posted an email address to write to Ft. Bragg the other day and many did as it pertained to Palin’s visit to the base.
It sounds like another email is necessary regarding the comments made by her father, who was part of Palin’s party, respecting the Commander in Chief and the fact they were encouraging donations for her political action committee from the bus sitting nearby. In fact, you can see the bus from the video through the doors she entered into the building. Both of these actions were against the rules set for her appearance. PALIN MADE THIS POLITICAL.
Emails should be send as serious reconsideration should be done as to her appearance at Ft. Hood and any other military bases they may plan as her tour is supposed to go to December 6th.
Here is a link to an article written by WCNC.com, Charlotte NC setting it out.
http://www.wcnc.com/news/politics/Some-camp-for-chance-to-meet-Palin-at-NC-base–71599282.html
Lots of pundits are talking that if Palin is positioning herself for 2012, then the corporate media should start doing it’s job and fact checking the assertions that she has put in her book. As a public figure, then it is the only proper thing to do.
I hope the MSM makes it a priority to follow up on this — especially the affair question. No reason that Senator Ensign and Governor should not be called out on this behavior and Palin escape criticism just because she is a woman, now is there? That would be sexist. And we know how Palin decried the sexism of the Newsweek cover. Right?
Right?
Absolutely lovely (o:
Thank you Mr. Mitchell and thank you AKM. The truth needs to be heard. Wish there was interest in protesting this book tour, she is a threat to society to say the least.
Oregonbird – I’m not reading it the same way as you, but I will respect your opinion.
Oregonbird, I think your points are well-spoken; however, if you are referring to his statement about her alleged affair, that was already in the public domain. He didn’t say anything we didn’t already know. I took it as him pointing out that Sarah was the pot calling kettles black. If you meant his remarks about the truth serum, then I have to say that I took that as total satire and enjoyed it immensely. I thought it was quite clever. In neither case do I see violent phrasing.
Sarah keeps talking about the “D” grade, but she must have flunked some classes. Didn’t she attend 5 or 6 colleges before getting a degree? Why so many?
Donald Craig Mitchell, you are my hero, sir! Well done!!!
If only your type of insightful narrative were more common!
Please do update us here at Mudflats on your two cases!! I know we’d all like to keep in the know.
Someone mentioned HuffPo’s overly-agressive moderation tonite.
This has been going on for some time, HuffPo does not allow critical dissent in some of the comment threads, and especially in the responses to Arianna’s posts.
This is deplorable, especially since she WILL allow posts that flatter her opinions from the same poster who before attempted to express polite dissent.
I now refer to her as Arianna Murdoch.
I’m hopeful that this is the first in a long series of exposes of ‘An American Lie’.
I have my fingers crossed and am hoping against hope that AKM has lined up a bevy of ‘haters’ who were ‘outed’ in Sarah’s book who will each write a long and detailed explanation of the truth of what really happened, exactly as Mr. Mitchell as done.
That would be awesome!
I’d just like to remind everyone of the comment guidelines, in particular –
It is never OK to engage in ad hominem attacks on other commenters, the moderation team or the community at large. If you have a gripe, I’m all ears. Email me at akmuckraker(at) yahoo(dot)com and we can hash it out. If you post a comment, you’re griping to thousands of people which is generally disruptive and inflammatory.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, however we do ask that people remain civil while expressing them.
Comments have already been removed from this thread where civility went out the window.
You can find the comment guidelines by clicking on the tab titled “comment guidelines” at the top of the blog, or by clicking here –
http://www.themudflats.net/comment-guidelines/
Thanks all.
Although I may personally disagree with them, oregonbird, I believe, has a couple of valid points worth further discussion. But I believe Andree would need to chime in before we further explore those points.
As to the truth serum, I took those comments as being metaphorical rather than a matter of violence. Palin lies. That much is obvious. How anyone can get her to admit or acknowledge (even to herself) those lies may only be possible thru extraordinary means.
Soooooo… what’s Andree McLeod’s opinion on all this? Anyone reach out to her to ask? Does she care to respond beyond what Mr. Mitchell has written? Just curious. …
I really did not know who you were till my husband told me. I began to read….this is such a GREAT narrative to sum up this book for all of us.
I hope those people that do purchase this mess are able to write it off taxes under misc crap.
Thank You! I’m glad a few others were not mentioned
Oregonbird- While I think along the line of your comment @112 and feel a bit frustrated that so far rebuttals to Sarah’s unwarranted insults are not somber or serious enough to illustrate the depth of perversity of her actions, I’m convinced that now is the time to let it rip, in whatever form one feel that can express the repudiation of her lies.
Sarah Palin has gone too far, she knows no boundaries or restrain. She may ignore the jokes and trying to match her style is futile….but using her tactics may make her do a double take.
Indeed, every rebuttal should make Sarah Palin call her lawyer and revise her stories.
Let’s hope that among the chaos a dry, plain narrative will emerge to stop her.
Sometimes I think it’s better to not read all the comments before commenting – so I’ll just say that I thought Donald Mitchell did a very good job of pointing out where Palin’s book (whoever wrote it) is not the truth. And the other thing that is really important is that when someone is talking about their own beliefs or ideas they can pretty much say what they want. But once the writer starts naming other people and saying what they did or said or didn’t do, then the author had better be telling the truth. I think it’s obvious to a lot of us that Sarah Palin doesn’t understand that concept, and for someone with a journalism degree that’s deplorable.
The only reason there aren’t protests at her book signings is that she is avoiding all the places where she isn’t well liked with a big fan base. Trust me, there are some of us in the Puget Sound region who would make the effort to show up to show that she doesn’t have everyone falling at her feet.
Truth serum? I loved it. But maybe just a good dose of Veritaserum (ala Harry Potter) would be even better. Get Snape to drop some in her evening pumpkin juice.
mr. mitchell, thank you!
ds55 @ 54 –
There are several indexes to Going Rogue: One of them just does the names of people mentioned within the “roguish” pages. Rachel Maddow mentioned them on her show last week. Here’s a sampling from a simple google search:
#
The ‘Going Rogue’ Index | The New Republic
Nov 17, 2009 … Online edition of journal of politics and culture, with selected articles from print magazine.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/the-going-rogue-index – Cached
#
“Going Rogue” Index (Unofficial)
Nov 17, 2009 … Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue” was published without an index — the alphabetical list of subjects and their page numbers which usually …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/going-rogue-the-unofficia_n_360988.html – Cached
#
Slate’s unauthorized index of Sarah Palin’s autobiography, Going …
The Going Rogue IndexSarah Palin didn’t put an index in her book. So we made one for her. By Christopher BeamPosted Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009, at 10:52 PM ET …
http://www.slate.com/id/101526 – Cached
Show more results from http://www.slate.com
#
Palin’s ‘going rogue,’ McCain aide says – CNN.com
With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin…/index.html – Cached – Similar
#
It’s The Going Rogue Index!
We’re Going Rogue, just like Sarah Palin! This page features a list of famous people with numbers by their names, like an index! We didn’t include family …
goingrogueindex.com/ – Cached
#
Going Rogue: The Index – Page 1 – The Daily Beast
Nov 21, 2009 … The Daily Beast’s columnist enjoyed Sarah Palin’s memoir so much, he created his own index for it.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/…/going-rogue-the-index/ – Cached
Thank you Mr. Mitchell for a very well written and informative post.
The people are crawling out from under the bus “and they all had knives” (Wind in the Willows).
I must say that this was a sweet, sweet confection that you brought me for my birthday AKM. It is rare that one gets to observe instant Karma. I think that SP should get the shovel that Andrew Halcro (via Confucious {sp?}) suggested. When one is not only stabbed in the back, but then has the knife twisted in public this is what to expect. At least, we must all agree, it was written in English.
With all of the lies and vindictiveness she’s spewing, I am questioning whether or not she even has a journilism degree. Has anyone ever seen it?? Did she frame it and hang it on her wall in the Wasilla office or evern the governors’ office?? She sure in he double tooth picks can’t speak a lick of English. I want to see her graduation certificate or even a picture of her graduating receiving a diploma w/cap and gown. I want PROOF!! Shall we wager whether or not if she has one? What college or university did she get a diploma from? Does anyone know?
here_in_PA,
I share your curiosity and consternation about the education of Sarah Palin. Does she REALLY have a degree?
I just remember being really struck by former professors (Idaho) who were interviewed last year for comments about their former student. Not ONE remembered her!
Freakin’ Brill!!
Has Mr. Mitchell been attending AKM’s storytelling class? A very similar way of telling a bedtime story.
Except for that last bit jarred me awake though. lol. Some bedtime story!
Well done.
112 oregonbird,
She be gettin done to her how she dunned others.
I think it’s an old Irish proverb.
116 clydedog & 134 BigSlick
Yeah, my acerbic tongue gets scrubbed clean on hufpo, I tell ya. Feh.
Thank you for summing up the book. I would never be able to drudge through it.
Andree has been an inspiration and continues the fight. I appreciate her.
She can’t run in 2012 because she can’t count that high and doesn’t know when that is.
Link for my last comment re Palin’s college years http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/08/university_of_idaho_professors.html
from the article: “Most of her journalism professors have retired or died, he said. Bird worked at the local newspaper, The Moscow-Pullman Daily News (then called The Idahonian), during Palin’s time at the University of Idaho and he doesn’t remember her ever freelancing or interning for the paper.
Two of her past journalism professors don’t remember her, either.”
I’ve been thinking…. dangerous for me
Perhaps MsQuitter should be THANKING all these people for helping her move on…. after all…..didn’t she say that when “her” God closes a door – He opens another? Maybe all these pesty pj-clad basement dwelling bloggers are doing God’s work ? We are part of God’s plan too— and we work and pray every single day the White House door remains closed for her.
Thankyou. I thought that was very interesting. I do admit that I continue to be surprised that every line of the book is fiction. Really quite an achievement, in a way.
@ oregonbird # 122 and 126…..
The elephant in this case is a rogue elephant with the name of Sarah.
Sarah Palin has used her massive celebrity…..not to take the high road of a real leader interested in healing wounds of a nation or putting forth comprehensive policy statements….but to use her book as a rogue elephant to try to trample her “enemies” into a bloody pulp (even though they will likely not EVER have a snowball’s chance in hell of having EQUAL publicity to tell their side of the story)
Mr. Mitchell responded with his rebuttal of Palin’s false accusations against him in her “best-seller.”….. Well -deserved satire regarding Palin, as well as shaking a local skeleton or two to make his central point about her veracity, are not the lowest common denominators…..They are the words of a person who got “slagged” on a massive public scale. I’m actually impressed with his restraint, professionalism, and delightful writing style.
Come to think of it…..he has also never admitted to signing “God” to any of his correspondences like Ms. Palin has. I personally find that it’s easier to be less critical of mere mortals where lowest common denominators are concerned.
OK it’s late for me and I had a bi*Ch of a day … so … did I read that right??
Is Mitchell ‘going on the record’ that Sarah DID have an affair with Hanson???
…….. because if he is, he must be able to back it up …. and if he can .. OMG
126 oregonbird Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:21 PM
I’m going to call an elephant an elephant. So to speak.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I myself find an expressive metaphor suggesting he’d like Sarah to be unable to tell lies without it being 100% clear to everyone that she is indeed lying, preceded by an element of one-upsmanship in the reference to Sarah’s own alleged indiscretions.
I’d like for Oregonbird to acknowledge that Sarah has consistently attacked her adversaries – during the campaign, in her book, in social media, during supposedly “apolitical” speaking events, etc. – with rhetoric that has been a factor in inciting a huge spike in threats upon the life of our duly-elected POTUS, as well as encouraged unprecedented numbers of people to show up visibly armed at political rallies and other public gatherings. There is no excuse for her actions, which are documented on video and in the public record.
I certainly do not feel that Mr. Mitchell has crossed any line that Sarah does not cross herself upon an hourly or paragraph basis.
Therefore, I respectfully disagree with Oregonbird’s assessment, and hope that she would be persuaded by my own.
Guys – this is just my opinion.
I am not sure this discussion is particularly fruitful.
I think it might be a good thing for everyone to just get up from the computer, have a stretch, take some deep breaths, go and hug a loved one, do something awesome for yourself or for your family.
And if that fails, there is always chocolate.
I agree. AKM
Fruitful. That was going to be my point.
On lying:
I tend to believe Mr Mitchell’s account of his ‘role’ in Sarah’s Amazing Adventure. We’ve heard his account, different details/same bottom line, for a week now. (It’s getting crowded under Sarah’s bus.)
Sarah’s version? Not so much.
Most people do not lie about things they know can easily be verified, or about people who will have access to the lies and/or the forum to dispute those lies.
The amazing — to me, anyway– thing about Sarah’s lies, is the total lack of self-consciousness about doing it. Since the book’s release, it’s been one high-profile person after another coming out and calling her a liar. These people aren’t disputing ‘details’ either; they are disputing whole stories! From the campaign staffers, to the people she worked with in Alaska to just plain assorted bystanders who’ve crossed paths with her. Her book has become a parallel universe, where Sarah lives one one side of some weird continuum and the players in her story inhabit another. In fact, she rolls along, oblivious to them all, going on interviews where she knows she won’t be asked to clarify the record. And … she’s right. No challenges, no confrontations.
It really IS amazing; not only that she lies, but that she is confident that somehow, none of this can touch her. Why is that? Seriously … how did she get to this ‘place’ where reality doesn’t seem to enter into her view of herself?
There are no boundaries in her world, are there? When no amount of confrontation with the ‘facts’ deters her from sticking to her story, the possibilities must seem endless in the rarified sphere she lives in.
I don’t want to get into the story about Trig, other than to say that when I first heard it, I thought it couldn’t possibly be true; nobody in their right mind would even think of trying to get away with such a hoax; but now, I can almost see that Sarah Palin WOULD have the simple yet outrageous gall to think “it would all work out, what’s the big deal? I do it all the time! Nobody will challenge me, and if they do, so what?”
I have this image of Sarah in my mind: she is like Pig Pen (from Charlie Brown) walking around in a cloud of dust… oblivious to those around him or to the dust. It’s just who he is. He’s that dirty, dusty kid. So much so that the few times that Pig Pen did ‘clean himself up’ … nobody recognized him because his dust cloud defines and identifies him.
But, Sarah is a real person not a cartoon character and it’s not so funny or harmless. Apparently, she walks around in a cloud of lies. Sarah’s book has defined her as a liar, and worse, a liar who is oblivious of her own lies. It’s just ‘who she is’.
To those brave or angry or honest or wronged who are banding together “under the bus”, I wish you all good luck ‘cleaning her up’ … but something tell me that she won’t notice.
http://archivist1000.blogspot.com/2009/11/sarah-archtypical-tragic-hero.html
The more folks step up and point out SP’s faulty memory, re: her memoir, the better.
It’s one thing to accept we all have a worldview which colors what we see and hear and affects our actions.
It’s something else entirely, and completely unacceptable, for SP to ride -to-glory on values which she does not live by…
This is an extremely well-written piece. Thank you. I hope it gets the attention it deserves. Sadly, Palinistas have never been interested in “Truth”, and for the rest, watching Sarah’s train wreck is too mesmerizing to bring to halt by ending it with facts.
During last year’s election cycle, the university which granted Palin a degree in journalism bragged about her affiliation with the university. I cannot find that page at the moment, but that Idaho place sure was proud of it then. Perhaps the connection has helped them with a capital campaign or endowment.
“Sarah describes Andrew Halcro as “a wealthy, effete young chap who had taken over his father’s local Avis Rent A Car, and he starred in his own car commercial. He would go on to host a short-lived local radio show while blogging throughout the day, all of which were major steps up from a previous job as our limo driver at Todd’s cousin’s wedding.””
I don’t read Andrew Halcro- no criticism of him, I just don’t have time to read everything. But I think he may have justification for resentment at being termed “effete,” which I have seen used in the past as code for “gay.” Whether Mr Halcro is gay, I neither know nor care, and it’s none of my business or Sarah Palin’s. But I believe that is the purpose of her choice of that particular term. It’s a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to her followers, I believe.
It’s interesting that she wouldn’t mention his run for office but would mention his stint as a limo driver. Apparently, being a limo driver is ridiculously low-class, but wanting to be driven in a limo is acceptable. How does Sarah Palin think limo rental service would work if it weren’t for people willing to drive them? Is there something wrong with service industries, and can she explain how driving a limo is, as a class matter, different from Bristol working at Nordstrom’s as a barrista? And is it less classy than Todd’s fish-picking?
I have made a lot of soup from one potato here, but it strikes me as particularly ugly to sneer at anybody’s efforts to support themselves, and especially so in today’s economy. No honest work is shameful or lowclass; anybody who finds a job and does it to the best of his ability deserves respect.
Ivy – it’s just Sarah Palin’s Leona Helmsley moment (the hired help can pay the taxes but not me). Consider the source. I refuse to become offended by anything Palin says. She’s too stupid and narcissistic to know better.
(wonder what she would think of me taking a shovel to the gutters behind the cows?? “eeewwww… don’t wanna get my hands dirty like that!” – S-Error.)
Mr. Mitchell:
I was thinking more about your excellent piece here: According to Petumenous (sp?), Bailey may have claimed the Palin administration wasn’t aware of public records statutes. I think this claim is infuriating. Although they probably won’t, the legislature should conduct hearings.
I wouldn’t know, but I suspect the Department of Law and/ or the Department of Administration explicitly trained executive branch staff on how to retain records, including email records. The instructions have always been there. The state is very clear about email policies and they spell it out. Records retention is a big deal.
It would probably be easy to prove, as fact, that folks like Bailey and Palin were trained by the State, or instructed by the State, to copy their official state communications, including email communications, soon after they became state employees. Perhaps I’m wrong– but I bet these people were informed of records retention policies soon after they came on the job. There are probably people in DOL or DOA who can confirm that.
I doubt I’m telling you anything you haven’t already looked into, but it bugs me big time if executive branch officials have the nerve to take personal possession of (or perhaps selectively expunge) state business communications. Every state official, from the governor down, works for the state. Their paid activities belong to the State of Alaska.
Which takes me back to Parnell and AG Sullivan. Why can’t Alaskans access information (like email records) about their government? Do Parnell and Sullivan own Alaska? Just makes me boil. I want my government back.
54 ds55 Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:35 PM
Can’t someone feed the pages of SP’s book into a scanner and create an index? I know there’s automatic footnote software available, I used some in grad school. An index to accompany “Going Rogue” may fetch a penny or two from SP’s faithful on eBay.
__________________________
Christopher Buckley over at the Daily Beast has made an index for the book.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-21/going-rogue-the-index/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsC3
Just a few samples from the index:
Alaska
mind-numbingly boring intramural politics of, 1-208
Aristotle, 63
Atlantic Monthly
formerly reputable outlet asserts Trig Palin actually child of Bristol or Willow, 238
Baldwin, Alec
hypocritical failure to fulfill promise to leave U.S. after election of George W. Bush cited by SP, 313
Biden, Joe
called “Joe” by SP, 289
hair plugs of thought about by SP as calming device going into debate, 297
Couric, Katie
condescension of, 276
far more forgiving when Biden gives historically erroneous answer during his interview, 278
intense desire to be liked adduced by McCain staffer, 256
lowest-rated news anchor in network television, 270
should have been asked by SP what she reads, 207
Democrats
“embarrassed pacifism” of deplored, 46
Elites
stupidity of for buying Alaska salmon eggs labeled as “caviar,” 48
“want you to sit down and shut up,” 395
Fey, Tina
friendliness and graciousness of to SP, 310
makes lots of money imitating SP, 293
God 1, 22, 30, 33, 34, 51, 56, 57, 76, 83, 104, 121, 133, 170, 173-5, 176, 177-8, 181, 185, 187, 193, 195, 208, 210-217, 243, 245, 261, 286-8, 294, 322-3, 346, 349, 355, 362, 399, 413
Kerry, John
“elitist loon,” 181
#158, Archivist: “It really IS amazing; not only that she lies, but that she is confident that somehow, none of this can touch her. Why is that? Seriously … how did she get to this ‘place’ where reality doesn’t seem to enter into her view of herself?”
She got to it through WITCHCRAFT – remember Moothee (sp) casting a spell over her in one of the by now scrubbed videos?
On the other hand, I am REALLY worried about that Teflon cloak that she seems to be wearing…
I would say that Christopher Buckley ought to avoid clutching his pearls over maternity/paternity issues, given that he himself fathered an out-of-wedlock son whose maintenance is still disputed and still in the newspapers. WFB specifically wrote this child out of his will. The boy’s mother has gone to court to have child support increased, as he has learning disabilities and needs a special school. Whatever was Buckley thinking, by Going There? The New York Post has had a field day with his denials–of paternity, until it was proven, of meeting the mother’s needs–on many occasions.
Excellent!
I for one would like to see Sarah knocked off her sanctimonious throne. Whichever lie does her in, I don’t care, but after 413 pages of lies, I certainly hope one of them tarnishes her holier than thou image.
Only 66 people have commented on this great stories on Huffington Post. Please also comment there. I don’t think HuPo is giving it very good placement on their pages.
As the Palin turns! Those Alaska nights are colder than I imagined. Is the next stop Maury Povich or will Sister Sarah want this on Pay-per-view for $49 {$10 extra for HD}. I say let the marketplace decide!