As the immediate past Vice Presidential nominee, it’s hardly surprising that most people outside Alaska view Sarah Palin as a card-carrying member of the GOP establishment. Despite her husband Todd’s seven year dalliance with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, and his quiet conversion to the GOP when his wife decided to run for office, Sarah has always been a party member—technically. Many are perplexed that Palin “suddenly” has turned against the very establishment that brought her national fame, and is now throwing her support (albeit not a formal endorsement) behind Newt Gingrich and against the party’s presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney.

What surprised onlookers don’t realize is that going from toeing the line as the party’s VP pick to her new role as bomb thrower is, to Palin, like slipping out of those shiny red high heels and into a nice comfy old pair of running shoes. She’s back in her element. The truth is that the only political tactic that ever won Sarah Palin an election—from Mayor of Wasilla to Governor of Alaska—was proclaiming herself the outsider, and railing against the powers-that-be. As the expression goes, she’s not the one inside the tent pissing out, she’s the one outside the tent pissing in. And she likes it that way.

In 2006, Palin was facing an incumbent Republican in the Alaska gubernatorial primary. Corruption was widespread in the Alaska legislature, and oil companies were purchasing their very own lawmakers, sometimes for as little as a few thousand dollars a pop. After an FBI raid, microphoned informants, hidden cameras in hotel rooms, and cash changing hands, 10 percent of the legislature (Republicans all) ended up indicted for bribery related offenses. The Governor at the time, Frank Murkowski, was trying to rush approval of a Petroleum Profits Tax—negotiated behind closed doors and highly favorable to oil companies who were eager to take as much as they could get at the expense of Alaska citizens.

It was easy to find fault with the Republican party in 2006, and Palin did just that. She rose up from near obscurity, red-suited, fresh-faced, like Joan of Arc ready to take on an army of evil-doers who were running the show. “The machine,” “the good ol’ boys’ network,” “the establishment,” “evil-doers”—these phrases flowed from her lips like a mantra. In fact, literal comparisons to Joan of Arc, King David, and the biblical Queen Esther peppered the emails of support she got from fans. Palin welcomed the allusions. She quite literally believed that God had called her to take on the fight. He had a plan for her. However, the political pragmatist in her knew not to wear her religious zealotry on her sleeve, and those who inhabited that world with her saw the wisdom in it. Mainstream they are not.

Palin’s is not a religion where a quick crossing of oneself in the end zone, a “God bless America,” or a sticky fish on the bumper of the SUV is sufficient. She lives in a world of divine interventions, laying on of hands, secret prayer teams, Providence, Destiny, casting out witches, prayer warriors, intercession, visions and dreams from seers sent through email, or on slips of paper passed at rallies… It is a Dungeons and Dragons world of magic, treachery, and Good with a capital G vs. Evil with a capital E. The world is pregnant with secret meaning. Signs are everywhere. One can imagine a long-ago Sarah as one of those children who plays dress-up, puts on the tiara and doesn’t just pretend she’s a princess—she becomes one.

This is why it is sometimes so difficult and frustrating for politicos to predict what Palin may do next. It all depends on what God wants, and how he delivers his message. The one constant is that if God opens a door, it’s not just an invitation to plow through—it’s a mandate. Palin has thereby become a living example of some sort of divine, political Peter Principle—she has risen to and exceeded her own level of incompetence.

She is not intellectually curious because she doesn’t need to be. She doesn’t know much because it’s not necessary that she does. And she really doesn’t have an overriding political philosophy, because she will be presented with people who will act as instruments of advancement and who’ll tell her what she needs to say. “God brought us together,” she told her inner circle as governor. Everything will work out as it was meant to be. She will arrive at whatever the destination is, whenever the time is right, with a small and tightly knit circle of confidants around her. She can only function through that inner circle.

As long as she is the devoted martyr, the populist Everyman, eyes gazing upward, standing strong against the forces of evil, suffering the injustices and untruths, little else matters.

And as much as Governor Palin hated the villains (the Alaska Republican Party), they hated her right back. She ousted Gov. Frank Murkowski with more than 50% of the vote in a three-way race for the Republican nomination. She clobbered popular former two-term Democratic governor Tony Knowles in the general election. And then once in office, she did the unforgivable. She worked with Democrats in the legislature to revamp Alaska’s oil tax policy, stuck a stake in the heart of Murkowski’s oil-friendly Petroleum Profits Tax, and replaced it with something called ACES (Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share). She wrote every Alaskan man, woman and child an energy rebate check for $1200 to help ease the cost of high energy bills. She went toe to toe with members of her own party in leadership positions, who’d built careers kowtowing to big oil. She praised Obama’s energy plan.

Of course, her administration wasn’t all smooth sailing. Despite the political talents she possessed, her own narcissism, obsessive tendencies, cronyism, middle school drama, truth twisting, and need to settle personal scores emphasized her incompetence as a leader. But using the GOP as target practice was a delicious indulgence for Palin—and its time has come again on the national scene.

Even during the 2008 race, it was almost unbearable for Palin to play ball and do as she was told. At that time, the opportunity ahead didn’t call for working with Dems and throwing darts at Republicans, nor did it call for compromise or praise where it was due. The door was open, and this time it called for brass knuckles. Nobody was going to tell her that Michigan was out of play. Nobody was going to tell her not to talk about Obama palling around with terrorists. Nobody was going to tell her to sit down and shut up on election night. Nobody puts Sarah in the corner.

Her latest quip for the 2012 election cycle  is that the Republican party is “Stalinesque.” Other than perhaps knowing that Stalin came from that country you can see from Alaska, it’s doubtful that analogy sprang forth from her own grey matter. But Palin has surrounded herself with a fresh new “inner circle” that knows of such things, and has been delivered to her. They are the Cyrano to her Christian de Neuvillette. They whisper “Stalinesque” and other smart things from the rose bushes, and she stands in the moonlight, speaking the mavericky words of insurgency to the camera, eyes shining, and beams of righteous light emanating from her like a halo.

In a 2009 email, after being uninvited to speak at a Republican event, Palin had quite a bit to say about Newt Gingrich, the man she now defends.

…Yes, (Newt/GOP) are egotistical, narrow minded machine goons... but all the more reason God protected me from getting up on stage in front of 5000 political and media “elites” to praise him, then it be shown across the nation. At some point Newt would have shown his true colors anyway and we would have been devastated having known we’d earlier prostituted ourselves up in front of the country introducing him and acting like that good ol’ rich white guy is the savior of the party.

Plus, I had nothing to wear, and God knew that too. Party machinery sucks. I can’t tell you how much I hate it – nothing ever changes – we went through it before and after the VP campaign… I’ve gone through it all my career. We just don’t fit into it, and maybe we should thank God for that. [From Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin - A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years]

The blatant hypocrisy of it will not occur to her. That was then and this is now. Then, he was the establishment, the machine, the good ol’ boy, the goon—everything she despised. But now, Mitt Romney is the golden boy of the party and Newt has become the outcast—the misunderstood, the Rogue. It’s a new day of dress-up. A new fairy tale. Regardless of her costume du jour—newscaster, sex symbol, fisherman, hunter, hockey mom—she’ll be playing the same role.  And there’s a new good guy and a new bad guy. All she knows is that’s the way it worked out, and if this is where she was meant to be, then so be it.

It’s also interesting to note, that back in 2006, Palin’s other Republican rival was Fairbanks businessman John Binkley. Palin referred to him as “the machine candidate”, “Rich Man Binkley” with his “cheesy smile,” and even hesitated about using a particular local pollster because he was Binkley’s “mormon bro’” and it might affect his loyalty to her. Fair warning to Mitt Romney—Palin is no stranger to snarking at rich, smiling machine Mormons.

~John Binkley

Whether Palin will attempt to jump in the race this time, make her move at convention time, wait until 2016, or take a different path entirely will depend on factors as of yet unknown. A door will open, a cast of characters will present itself, and Palin will do whatever needs to be done. Whatever it is, rest assured it will not be with the blessing of the “machine.”

Was Sarah Palin’s proclamation, “If I were in South Carolina, I’d vote for Newt” really an endorsement, or just her attempt to keep the wounded elephant that is the current presidential GOP lineup limping forward as far as possible before it collapses under the weight of its own unelectability? Correspondence from Palin seems to indicate the latter.

During Palin’s VP candidacy, her relationship with Newt Gingrich was tumultuous at best. Emails sent on Palin’s Yahoo! account while she was governor, which (despite being in the hands of the state of Alaska) have never been made available to the public, reveal that Newt had some avuncular words of wisdom for the greenhorn candidate:

She didn’t need local and state allies, not with Newt Gingrich regularly emailing advice like suggesting she not answer difficult question and instead “she should reframe it into the question she wishes they asked,” or better yet, “When your opponent has posed a question designed to put you on defense, the right strategy is to destroy the very legitimacy of the question and pose a new question of your own.” [From Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin - A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years]

But after the unsuccessful campaign, the relationship between the two became more strained. Things came to a boiling point in the summer of 2009, just weeks before Palin quit the governorship of Alaska.

This transformation had to do with a speaking engagement on June 8 at the Washington D.C. Convention Center. Sarah was originally invited to be the keynote speaker at an annual congressional fundraising dinner. As was her custom, she hesitated before accepting and Gingrich was invited as a fall-back. A suddenly dis-invited and miffed Sarah threatened not to attend before begrudgingly relenting.

On June 7, the day before Gingrich’s speech, Sarah wrote to her close inner-circle of administration confidants (including Frank Bailey):

From: gshp

Subject: Fw: Newt

…I don’t know why we have to protect the elites who do things like this so we don’t “ruffle feathers” by keeping it to ourselves. Newt “uninvited” me yesterday to speak at tomorrow’s NSRC (sic for NRSC, the National Republican Senatorial Committee). I was the surprise guest … I’d be sitting at his table, unannounced (though I think they were purposefully already leaking it, I know Meg (Stapleton) leaked it to Politico), then would get up to do a surprise speech and introduction of Newt. So… I went from being the invited keynote speaker back in February, to just the surprise introducer of the speaker this month, to the back-of-the-bus’er (“sit down and shut up”) the day before the event. One of the organizers told Meg last night that Newt pulled the plug, said he didn’t want me to “steal the show”.

This has nothing to do with me. It has to do with the machine, and egos, and power. Their action…tells us they’re not ready to walk the walk and reform the party…

It knocks the political wind right out of my gut – but really we shouldn’t be surprised. And when I mentioned to Mike Reagan [Ronald Reagan’s stepson and GOP commentator] the other night that I’d be referencing Newt in my introduction of him, he wasn’t overly thrilled…maybe there’s something others see in Newt… Keep this confidential until we figure out how I’m supposed to explain flying all the flippin’ way across the country – leaving my baby at home – to be at this dinner, then we get accused of dodging the substantive events like the NSRC, when in reality they kicked us to the curb. I hate politics. 

Later that day, Sarah added more insight:

…Yes, (Newt/GOP) are egotistical, narrow minded machine goons... but all the more reason God protected me from getting up on stage in front of 5000 political and media “elites” to praise him, then it be shown across the nation. At some point Newt would have shown his true colors anyway and we would have been devastated having known we’d earlier prostituted ourselves up in front of the country introducing him and acting like that good ol’ rich white guy is the savior of the party.

Plus, I had nothing to wear, and God knew that too. Party machinery sucks. I can’t tell you how much I hate it – nothing ever changes – we went through it before and after the VP campaign… I’ve gone through it all my career. We just don’t fit into it, and maybe we should thank God for that. [From Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin - A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years]

Despite the good fortune of being saved from a wardroble gaffe by divine intervention, words of comfort and consolation came from Palin aide Ivy Frye: “Screw Newt, and let him take the heat for himself…”

None of this previous bad blood (of which Gingrich may or may not have been aware) seemed to dampen his enthusiasm over Sarah Palin’s comments yesterday. Nor did her explanation that the reason she’d vote for him is simply to see the carnage continue seem to faze him. He said he was “thrilled” after talking to Todd Palin who had formally endorsed him last week, and went on “It’s a signal to every conservative that the one conservative vote that’s effective is to Newt Gingrich and that’s very helpful.”

Palin’s desire to watch the five-way Republican cage fight is so appealing she told South Carolinians that she’d actually vote for the man she described as an “elite” “egotistical, narrow-minded machine goon” – a “good ol’ rich white guy” whom Palin said she didn’t even want to introduce to a crowd of a few thousand lest she “prostitute herself” in front of the nation.

We’ll find out on Saturday if the Palin non-endorsement endorsement helps Gingrich carry the day, and whether Palin continues to urge voters to cast their ballots for a man she actively dislikes.

No, not Sarah. Todd.

His wife has not decided yet “who is best able to go up against Barack Obama,” Todd Palin said. But apparently Newt has won the heart of the savvy political expert that is the snowmachine racing ex-first-dude of Alaska.

One thing it does tell us is that a last-minute re-entry into the presidential race by Sarah Palin, that the long-suffering die-hard Palinbots have been hoping for isn’t going to happen. Either that, or there’s really trouble in paradise and Todd is endorsing Newt anyway. Either way, you almost feel sorry for them. It’s like telling a kid that there is no Easter bunny – horrible, unintelligent, screeching, narcissistic kid who’s made your life a living hell for years, and who, if given any power whatsoever would throw the country into complete mindless chaos.  OK, you don’t feel that sorry.

Palin told ABC News (not Fox) that his endorsement was unsolicited, and that he hadn’t spoken to Gingrich or anyone from his campaign. So, why? What is it about the angry pompous beltway blowhard that appeals to Mr. Palin?

Well, apparently he respects the former Speaker for “what he went through” in the 1990s and compared that scrutiny and bad press with what his wife went through during her run for the vice presidency.  As we know, bad press is never deserved. Perhaps everyone was just jealous of Newt because he’s so pretty, and they can’t stand to see a man succeed in politics. Whatever the reason, Todd Palin believes that this kind of media bashing prepares a candidate well for the future job of president. For instance, when Gingrich’s entire staff had had enough of him and flew the coop, Newt was left on his own to run the campaign. And now he’s bounced back.

Gingrich’s ability to overcome the obstacle and still move up in the polls showed his ability to campaign and survive, according to Todd Palin, who said Gingrich is not one of the typical “beltway types” and that his campaign has “burst out of the political arena and touched many Americans.”

That’s right… Nobody likes a quitter, and Newton Leroy Gingrich is no quitter. And that’s what really matters.

On top of that, Gingrich, who began his political career when Todd Palin was in Kindergarten, served in Congress for two decades, serving as the House Minority Whip for six years to became the 58th Speaker of the House of Representatives is no typical “beltway type.”

Now that we’ve cleared all that up, we can all sit with bated breath until Sarah Palin decides to endorse someone. Or not.

Team Davis Palin at Iron Dog 2010 - Photo by Robert DeBerry/Frontiersman

Ah, yes.  We’ll never forget ol’ whatsername.

But, much to our delight and her chagrin, for most of America the Palin “brand” is simply yesterday’s news.

You may recall that back in the day, when some people cared, Sarah Palin was the star of her own “reality” TV show called Sarah Palin’s Alaska.  She and her family were whisked all over the state where the ex-half governor demonstrated her lack of outdoorswoman cred, her lack of hunting skill, her lack of basic knowledge about firearms and rock climbing and parenting, and earned a million dollars an episode for doing so.  She was, however, great at going along on guided trips and having things done for her by other people.

Apparently now, since that whole politics thing hasn’t worked out so well for her, Palin is back at the station, peering down the track and waiting for the next gravy train to arrive. It may be a while.

Discovery Communications and A&E, who were engaged in a bidding war over who would have the honor of producing Sarah Palin’s Alaska (and receive the subsequent avalanche of hate mail) are none to keen on the latest Palin project. It seems that this time, despite her sudden availability of free time, the proposed TV show would focus on the adventures of the Ex-half-First-Dude, Todd Palin and his snowmachining (snowmobiling to you Lower 48ers) career.

I’m guessing it’s probably not going to focus on the alleged rule-breaking, drama-inducing cheat-fest known as Iron Dog 2007, or his faux broken arm, or his super secret squirrel mission following his former brother-in-law down snowy desolate trails to capture pictures of him not being hurt enough to collect workers compensation.  It will likely be the Todd version of Sarah’s fluffumentary “The Undefeated” and feature the rugged, weather-worn Todd battling the elements and the lamestream media to rise victorious over circumstance and the pack of testosterone-fueled competitors. Follow the country’s would-have-been Second Dude get a kiss goodbye from his once famous wife, and take off over icy terrain and miles of bleak nothingness punctuated only by occasional mechanical repairs.  Call it, “The Uninteresting.”

And how much does the once semi-relevant Palin family think that this is worth to the entertainment industry? Reportedly, they are seeking that same million dollar an episode price tag. Silly Palins.  I guess they haven’t been reading the news lately to notice that they’re not in it.

Sarah Palin is not running for the presidency. I’d been waiting to hear that since the day after the 2008 presidential election, which is ostensibly when she began running for the presidency. From the moment she “went rogue” on the campaign trail, calling out then-candidate Obama for “pallin’ around with terrorists,” and contemplating an unauthorized trip back to Michigan to try to win a state that the McCain campaign had given up on, she had ideas and plans of her own. She lamented in her book Going Rogue that the campaign had shackled her. Why couldn’t they just “let Sarah be Sarah?”

After the ignominious defeat in 2008, she paid no heed to the advice of longtime friends and political allies in Alaska who suggested that to win the White House she should form a PAC, keep her head down, study up on global affairs, and work diligently to be re-elected for a second term as governor. Instead the siren song of a book deal, a reality TV show, six-figure speaking engagements, Fox News talking headery, and a life of international celebrity hypnotized and guided her political ship in a strong and steady course right for the rocks.

She did form a PAC, and said she might be interested in the presidency. She painted a bus to look like the Constitution and drove across the land upstaging other candidates, and visiting historical landmarks for her family vacation. She bought a house in the Lower 48, an easier “home base” than Wasilla from which to launch a candidacy. She criticized her “competitors” from both sides of the aisle, and told us how she would handle things, if she were in charge. She could beat Obama, she told us.  Her unofficial campaign film The Undefeated (albeit a huge flop) showed in theaters, and just recently made its debut on the shelves of Wal-Mart. Not one, but two books written in her name have been published, and a nationwide book tour gave her ample opportunity to shake even more hands. Even the day before she quit the candidacy she never really had, her lawyer made calls to key states to find out about filing deadlines.

So, why would anyone do this if they weren’t going to run? Palin was either praying (literally) for a last-minute mandate from the people, so she could rise as the reluctant leader (ala her favorite founding father George Washington), or she’s a delusional self-promoting narcissist who has made a lucrative career as a Shiny Object off the backs of the gullible. Or both.

And let’s not discount the assessment of former senior political advisor for the McCain-Palin campaign. In an interview about her new novel Wallace said, ” The idea of a mentally ill vice president who suffers in complete isolation was obviously sparked by the behaviors I witnessed by Sarah Palin.

Ouch.

But don’t worry about the Palins. A few extra weeks of donations to SarahPAC came in after a letter was sent to the faithful from Treasurer Tim Crawford who said that she was “on the verge” of making a decision. And the thing that would help her make that decision was your one-time most generous contribution. Sarah needs to know she’ll have your support. It ended up being less like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and more like the snake oil salesman on that episode of Little House on the Prairie who brings his covered wagon to Walnut Grove, and swindles the kindly trusting townsfolk out of next year’s seed money.

The confused muddle of loyalists at the blog Conservatives4Palin didn’t know what to do when they heard the news. With no “official” statement from the blog for hours after the announcement, they were left to gather tentatively in the comment section of the last post, where they wandered like dazed refugees, not knowing what to do or where to go. Anger, sadness, denial, embarrassment, sheepishness, despair…

Adam Brickley, the former college student who started the Draft Sarah Palin for VP blog (the actual ‘blogger in the basement’) has tried desperately to rally the confuzzled, with a flowery, fiery statement on behalf of the candidacy that might have been.

But at the end of the day, it was not to be — at least not this year. And in a weird way, that might be a good thing emotionally for people like me (and there are a lot of us) who have been so ill-treated by many in the GOP that we wanted raw catharsis as much as we wanted victory. However, anyone who thinks Gov. Palin or any of us “cultists” are going to go away has another thing coming — in fact, a reinvigorated Palin movement is already coalescing. The people who would have been the core supporters of a Palin campaign are now the biggest and most powerful bloc of free agents in the 2012 primary, and I’m practically salivating at the idea of watching the establishment candidates trek up to Wasilla to genuflect and beg for an endorsement. Every last one of them. [snip] If you thought we were going to make your life hell as a campaign, wait until you see what we can do as a pressure group.

They’re just licking their wounds, hugging their Teddy bears, and having some good old fashioned emotional catharsis before they make everyone’s lives a living hell. The shackles are off now, baby!  They’re just reloading!

Well, you know they had to come up with something. And that was it.

Meanwhile, back at the hive, another dyed-in-the-wool Palinbot (albeit one whose faith had recently started to crumble) wasn’t feeling quite so charitable. The Palin bathwater, it seems, is no longer his beverage of choice. The filmmaker of the puffumentary “Media Malpractice, How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted,” John Ziegler, posted an open letter to Palin on his website. It begins:

Dear Governor Palin:
Wow. So, is this really how your political saga is going end? By letting down your remaining supporters and telling them, with a straight face, that you can do more to impact change as a Fox News Contributor than you can as President of the United States?  [snip]

Now that you aren’t running you have made yourself almost totally irrelevant. Unlike with Chris Christie (did you notice how much more passionately the media pined for him than you?), no one with an actual chance will want your endorsement. Once the nominee and the new VP candidate are chosen you will be very old news, and with no elected office (or, thanks to you’re your incredible lack of popularlity in Alaska, even the theoretical chance of one), you will have no opportunity to alter your narrative or make any news.
My guess is that you won’t even end up speaking at the convention because you are too big for a minor slot and too dangerous for a prime one.

The whole thing is pretty much a metaphorical kneecap to the forehead. It was interesting that Ziegler noted Palin’s “incredible lack of popularity in Alaska.” It’s true. The former golden girl of Alaska politics, whose favorability rating as governor hovered at one time near 90% is now no more than a source of eye rolling, and face palming here in the Great Land. She isn’t even a punch line because nobody wants to hear the jokes, and nobody wants to bother to tell them. She has crossed over. She has become irrelevant.

Moments after the Anchorage Daily News posted that Palin had decided not to run for the presidency, the first six comments told the story:

We’re perfectly happy to foist her, and the former First Dude off on Arizona where they recently bought a house.  If, some day she decides to run for a senate seat in Arizona, the excommunication will be happily complete. Until then, Sarah, don’t let the panhandle hit you on the way out.

By Ken Morris and Jeanne Devon

This is the first article we will be posting on material that was ultimately cut from Frank Bailey’s memoir - Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin. That book was Frank’s story, but we felt it was important to share what we learned that was outside the scope of Bailey’s direct experience. For a full explanation and introduction to this post, read HERE.

Note: All of the sources who came to the authors after McGinniss’s leak of the Blind Allegiance manuscript in February (and there were several) did so voluntarily. Their longstanding relationships with the Palins were verified and their comments were willingly taped or supplied in written form. While individuals remain fearful of the well-documented Palin retribution (therefore requiring anonymity), they are in unanimous agreement that Sarah Palin is ill-suited to have a position of power or influence. We have every reason to believe the comments are credible and accurate and in no cases did these stories conflict with our findings in researching Blind Allegiance for two years. In addition, when stories overlapped, the details corroborated one with the other. Finally, except where noted and referenced in Blind Allegiance, Frank Bailey had no part in conducting or writing these pieces.

Obsessive Perfection and Anger Mismanagement

Frank Bailey was one of the earliest volunteers on the Sarah Palin for Governor campaign and rose from toilet-scrubbing gofer to holding the powerful position of Director of Boards and Commissions in the Palin administration. His journey from naïve idealistic devotee to disillusioned outsider is the subject of his memoir, Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (with Ken Morris and Jeanne Devon).

From the earliest months of his association with Sarah Palin, Frank Bailey had witnessed and been on the receiving end of her unpredictable temper. As a glass half  full guy and loyal foot soldier, he told himself that passion—even if unjustly directed at underlings—was simply a normal response to the abnormal and highly stressful pressures of a hotly contested gubernatorial campaign. He also believed Sarah when she insisted that she was under constant assaults from “evil forces” and “evil-doers.” How, under these circumstances, could someone not buckle under from time to time?  He even convinced himself that temper could sometimes be an asset in a political race.

To help staff manage these tantrums, husband Todd Palin often made morning calls to Frank, giving him a heads-up on Sarah’s mood so that staff would be prepared for which Sarah to expect that day. Todd, more than anyone else, was in a position to gauge her shifting moods, himself frequently the target of Sarah’s powder keg temper.

But Todd, as well as long-time personal friends, understood all too well that Sarah’s temperamental outbursts had more sinister roots. When Sarah said to her staff, “I hate being wrong,” others speculated she feared being perceived as anything less than physically, or intellectually perfect.

Sarah, as Frank noted in his book, seemed to live off coffee in the form of a drink called a Skinny White Chocolate Mocha. Around the time Frank first noticed Sarah’s dramatic weight drop, the candidate was staying with friends while Todd was away. These individuals said they grew concerned about Sarah; one going so far as to offer, “I don’t think she ate once. All she drinks is coffee.” When pressed further, the individual went on, “It’s terrible. She is in a hole. She’s completely blank.”

A long-time acquaintance who visited the Palin home gave additional insight into the problem with her fixation on weight: “I’ve seen boxes of diet pills on her bathroom counter, in the bedroom.” For many of these pills, the common listed side effects are irritability, mania, depression, and insomnia. While writing Blind Allegiance, the only one of these behaviors we did not document thoroughly was insomnia.

Todd, alarmed and frustrated, confirmed that his wife was taking these diet aids when heard to say, “She’s taking all those damn diet pills, keeping her wired out. Makes her a monster, she’s a bitch.”

That savage temper Todd referred to, whether or not a result of the pills, often went uncontrolled, even in the presence of their own children, and guests. One visitor sadly said, “We saw Sarah throw cans across the kitchen at Todd, denting the refrigerator. One time we saw her slap Todd hard across the face after he’d been drinking too much, saying ‘Do you know how bad that would be for me if anyone saw you like that?’ She was mayor at the time.”

Their household was reportedly a cauldron of verbal abuse and warfare. Beyond what was revealed directly to us, independent accounts confirmed this bitter family dynamic—including those made public by ex-almost-son-in-law and father of Bristol Palin’s son Levi Johnston. Bristol later called Johnston a “gnat” and indirectly suggested in her recently published book, that he was guilty of statutory rape. The following comments from Vanity Fair (Michael Joseph Gross, October, 2010) were confirmed and repeated to us first-hand with additional detail:

One friend of the Palins’ remembers an argument between Sarah and Todd: “They took all the canned goods out of the pantry, then proceeded to throw them at each other. By the time they got done, the stainless-steel fridge looked like it had got shot up with a shotgun. Todd said, ‘I don’t know why I even waste my time trying to get nice things for you if you’re just going to ruin them.’ ” This friend adds, “As soon as she enters her property and the door closes, even the insects in that house cringe. She has a horrible temper, but she has gotten away with it because she is a pretty woman.”

When the then-governor was considering the possibility of having a reality show filmed in the Palin home, Bristol Palin said directly to Frank Bailey in Sarah’s presence (reported in Blind Allegiance), “They’d see some shit, that’s for sure.” Sarah responded with a confirming giggle. While at the time Frank had no idea what Bristol might be referencing, those we interviewed knew exactly.  Anyone, at any time, might find themselves front and center of a battle royal.

Observers described fights that began most mornings. Sarah, who often went to bed as early as five o’clock in the afternoon, awoke early. Todd usually slept on the old, red-leather sofa in the living room because the younger girls habitually slept with Sarah in her bed, or Sarah went to bed furious with him. The running  joke with overnight guests was, “Hey, Todd! Got your bed ready on the couch, do you?”

As Sarah often shuffled from her bedroom pre-dawn, it was impossible for the couple to avoid each other, and it typically did not take long for their shouting matches to begin.

“The fights became so frequent that the kids seemed almost immune to them,” said a person who’d seen this scenario play out too many times. In describing how these outbursts degenerated, an observer noted, “Sarah and Todd said everything you can think of. There was cussing, swearing, and arguing in front of the kids all the time: ‘F*** you,’ ‘shit,’ ‘damn,’ ‘I hate you,’ ‘I’m leaving you,’ ‘no, I’m leaving you first.’” Todd admitted to at least one person that if Sarah had lost the governorship, he would have divorced her. Did he mean what he said?  The couple’s actions would seem to indicate yes. Relationships are by their nature complex, so who knows, but more on Sarah’s supposed affair with Todd’s ex-business partner in a later post.

***

The claim that Sarah was never actually pregnant with her special needs child Trig—a widely circulated rumor that became known as “Babygate”—was partially based on Sarah shocking the world by announcing her pregnancy at seven months. Prior to that, nobody had suspected a thing. The revelation was even a surprise to staff, Frank Bailey, and the media. Even State Senator (and, according to Sarah and staff an evil-doer) Lyda Greene incredulously said, “It’s wonderful. She’s very well disguised. When I was five months pregnant, there was absolutely no question that I was with child.”

How did Sarah manage to hide that pregnancy for so long?  That question seemed to defy explanation to all except a small number of personal insiders who expressed alarming speculation. During her pregnancy with Piper (and it was suggested later with Trig), Todd asked a friend whom he thought knew about such matters, “As unhealthy as her eating is, what can those diet pills do to the baby?”

The friend explained to him, “I’m not sure, but I’d be concerned about having a failure-to-thrive child.” (Failure to thrive is where there is a significant interruption in the expected growth rate during early childhood and can result from malnutrition). Was Sarah so vain as to try and hide her pregnancy and prolong her petite, almost perfect figure through drastic means?  It’s a proposition that shocked everyone, including, reportedly, her husband.

When the newly revealed pregnant governor went into labor, she was in Texas at an energy conference. It was more than a month before her due date with a high risk pregnancy. She chose to continue delivering a speech, and then flew from Texas to Washington to Alaska in a commercial aircraft after her water broke, bypassing several excellent hospitals in order to return home to Alaska to deliver the child. She described the final stages of labor, as she drove out of Anchorage, past two major hospitals and headed toward the Mat-Su Valley.

Landed in, uh, in Anchorage at about 10:30. Got out to the valley at 11:30 and [my doctor] met us at the hospital, checked me out and said, ‘Um, Yea you look, you may have it um tonight or in the morning.’ And it was smooth, it was relatively easy, in fact it was very easy, the easiest of all of them because he was so tiny.

The official story of Palin’s can only be described as a demonstration of what is universally regarded as poor judgment. Even if taken at face value, her story demonstrates a wanton disregard for her own health and safety, and that of her unborn baby. The story speaks to the truthfulness of what these concerned people are saying.

It was also suggested that this problems went beyond dieting. Todd spoke to a couple visiting their home concerning what he regarded as his wife’s increasingly dangerous behavior. Sarah, he once said, had not eaten in two days. Then, to break her fast, she’d “suddenly eat four packages of Oreos and a loaf of bread and butter,” only to follow up by buying and eating “those damn big honey buns.”

One of their guests reported, “I told Todd, ‘She’s binging and purging.’ It wasn’t something he didn’t know, but I wanted to make sure, so I watched, and then one day she did come into the house in the afternoon with honey buns and a couple of fast-food bags,  and disappeared into the bedroom.”

At times, Sarah reportedly would retire in the late afternoon and not come out of her bedroom until morning. After these gorging sessions, when she occasionally came downstairs for a drink, “she had a red, glassy-eyed stare and reddened knuckles, as if she’d rubbed them against her teeth.” When confronted by friends who told Sarah these were classic symptoms of bulimia and that she needed help, Sarah simply scowled and walked away. In a pattern she repeated on matters large and small, she did not want to hear the negatives. In this instance, assuming Todd had requested this confrontation she directed her considerable anger at him.

Partially as a result of her irregular presence, she was, to be generous, a lax housekeeper and sometimes disinterested parent; in many ways this mirrored her dealings with perceived political enemies, a fixation that often precluded her from attending to state business. In Frank’s mind, this is where Todd Palin did his best to compensate.

While Frank Bailey eventually came to know Todd Palin as someone whose demands would lead to personal anxiety and crisis (including his tragic involvement in Troopergate), he was not alone in seeing the man’s love for his children. In the words of someone who saw the Palin children grow up: “Todd was a good dad. He would sit and braid his daughters’ hair in the morning before breakfast. He would make his little girls pretty before they went to school. He’d put bows in their hair, and he did well with those girls.

“And Sarah might be awake when he did this, drinking coffee and staring at her BlackBerry. And his little girls would have their hair braided by their dad because she was too off on another planet to make sure it was done. Sarah was too busy for ‘Time to brush your teeth’ or ‘Get your homework done.’ Todd put in a very nice set of washer and dryer, the really big ones. And laundry wouldn’t be done. One time I went to do laundry for them because everything was stained, and socks were terrible and nothing matched. I remember trying to put bleach in the bleach hole. Obviously someone had put soap in it and just left it, because it was a big, caked, molded mess.”

When Todd was gone from home for work on the North Slope for British Petroleum, “Everything was just nasty: Wal-Mart bins of used cotton balls; forty-eight bottles of half-used shampoo thrown on shelves. There’s a half-bath right off the kitchen, and it was disgusting. Clothes were kept in piles on the floor. But it was so funny because Todd would run home from the slope . . . and within ten minutes of being home, was using a Swiffer Duster in the main foyer of the house. Seriously. Or he would be running the vacuum cleaner in the front entranceway before he’d done anything else.”

Frank directly observed in Blind Allegiance that when Todd was home from his shift on the North Slope, he seemed both mother and father. Further confirming this picture, an occasional guest said, “First thing Todd does when he gets home is stop at Costco and buy fruit cups, tuna cups, all the groceries, because there would be none or very little at the house.”

***

Sarah’s desperate need to manage her weight was only part of a greater desire to appear glamorous. When in the presence of people like arch conservative supporter Bill Kristol, she understood that her beauty was disarming, helping to deflect shortcomings. Rarely was a discussion of her not prefaced with the identifier “Former beauty queen.” Once a flattering image was then flashed on the television screen or on the cover of a magazine, it was hard not to think she was also a current beauty queen.

Rush Limbaugh, in an early 2008 radio broadcast, said of Sarah: “Governor Sarah Palin’s a babe. By the way, I’m not diminishing any of her accomplishments by pointing out that she’s a babe; the babe aspect is just icing on the cake.” Without any self-consciousness, the comment and the word babe were circulated as sources of pride to the entire campaign staff, including Todd Palin. On local conservative talk radio in Alaska, she was often referred to as the “babalicious” governor.

In a quest to maintain physical perfection, she became, in the words of someone who spent weeks at a time in close contact with her, “addicted to Botox.” Reportedly a family member, an aesthetician, was on call to perform the treatments as an easy and convenient confidante. Many women in the public eye seek to maintain their youth with treatment, even surgery, so Sarah wasn’t alone. But her seeming compulsion to maintain cover girl glamor above all else—including family duties and state obligations—disturbed many who regularly witnessed these behaviors. If there was an unflattering picture of her, such as the October 2008  Newsweek cover that showed unwanted facial hair, pores, and wrinkles, that became an unfair attack; people in her circle complained that printing an un-retouched photo was an example of biased journalism. When Michelle Obama was placed on Maxim magazine’s Hot Top 100 list in 2009, and Sarah was not, aide Ivy Frye, knowing this would upset the governor, said, “I wish there were some way we could point out the stupidity of this without having to say, ‘Sarah is waaaaaay hotter than Michelle Obama.’”

Her focus on looks and tin ear for appropriate decorum became, at times, puzzling if not bizarre. But guests to their Wasilla home saw even more startling evidence of a woman almost wholly self-absorbed with looks.

When, as an infant, Piper was photographed as the poster child for the Alaska Right to Life campaign, Sarah had the photographer take shots of her in what one visitor described as almost softly pornographic photos.

“You have to check this shit out,” Todd said, leading one guest to the bedroom where, for a time, the photos hung on a wall above the bed. In three similar photos, Sarah was seen in white women’s underwear and a thin white men’s cotton shirt that was unbuttoned and teasingly open enough to expose ample cleavage. Sarah was perched seductively on her knees, her shoulders twisted to one side in a classic come-hither pose.

In what qualified as a second shock, Sarah had her girls, Willow and Bristol, dressed similarly and posed at her side with infant Piper in the foreground also wearing white.

“It’s hard to imagine those hanging outside her office at the White House,” one person quipped. “It was really weird. A lot of us were not surprised she spent so much money on clothes during the campaign. Even when she and Todd were younger and on a budget, she’d loved shopping, and they’d get in huge fights about all the money she was spending.”

When McCain’s staff complained after the campaign that Sarah was a “diva,” she became agitated and swore she wasn’t. For those who knew her well, including Frank, saying so didn’t make it true.

In an incident from the original text of Blind Allegiance, she grew surly and nasty when a cold sore appeared on her lip ahead of a campaign event and lashed out at family and staff.

But her fragile image-making went beyond looks. Sarah felt the need to manage her intellectual persona as much as her physical one. To add intellectual heft to her resume, she had staff pen op-eds that she didn’t always read or understand. She also (now famously thanks to Blind Allegiance) penned her own letters to the editor praising herself and had others sign, insisting they lie when asked by editors if they wrote the pieces. The image-building was a permanent crusade, and all that mattered was what people saw on the surface.

***

While there is always room in this world for misinterpreting observations or motives (maybe especially someone as controversial as Sarah Palin), what we heard in these interviews—coupled with our own exhaustive two year journey in writing a book—leaves us with the conclusion that Sarah’s judgment in all these matters was, at best, poor. Is this, rhetorically, someone we want near the red button at 3:00 a.m.?

We will explore more evidence uncovered in these interviews later.

In February of this year, there was a deliberate and unauthorized leak of the draft manuscript of the book Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (Frank Bailey with coauthors Ken Morris and Jeanne Devon). Rival Palin author Joe McGinniss obtained through his publisher a copy of the copyrighted manuscript and emailed it in its entirety to a host of media outlets inviting them to read and comment on the contents. The book, in first draft, was seeking a publisher at the time. Within days, the revelations shocked and amazed the media and public, making their way around the internet universe while being quoted extensively on Hardball, Last Word, Entertainment Tonight, Reuters News and Associated Press (among dozens of others), as well as substantial pieces being printed in the Anchorage Daily News, The Daily Beast, The New York Times, The London Times, and blogs around the world. We estimated that tens of thousands of copies were illegally downloaded via file-shares. Ken Morris spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees in Ceases and Desist orders in an attempt to limit the damage. In fact, he spent more than he ever made on the eventual publication of the book,
despite devoting two years of his life to its production.

As a direct result, potential publishers dropped out, citing the leak. Later, when released by Howard Books, publicity opportunities dried up because, as news outlets told us, “The information is already out there.” In damaging our efforts to write an important book, we have a trail of disparaging and aggressive emails from Joe McGinniss. Despite Jeanne signing a legally binding Non-Disclosure Agreement, he believed she should have told him about our book. In other words, she should have broken the law as a favor to him.  He claimed that Blind Allegiance and its authors were “taking money out of my pocket.” Interestingly, both McGinniss and his attorney admitted he was the source of the leaked manuscript. Sounds a bit Palin-esque, doesn’t it?

Even less funny is the fact that this was not the first time Joe McGinniss found himself at the center of an ethical firestorm. In 1990, Janet Malcolm wrote a book based on a series of articles appearing in the New Yorker Magazine entitled The Journalist and the Murderer, an expose about the egregious behaviors of a rogue journalist named Joe McGinniss (who, along with his publisher, eventually settled a lawsuit with a convicted murderer by agreeing to pay him a multi-hundred thousand dollar settlement). While we could write about these breaches ad nauseum, there is scheduled to be a major expose on Mr. McGinniss appearing on Truthout.org in early September that will, we understand, deal with these behaviors in depth. We haven’t seen the story, but the word “bombshell” has been mentioned. Stay tuned.

Despite the pain and expense, some good came of this disaster. Because of the glut of leaked information and accounts of Sarah and Todd Palin’s behavior during the years Frank Bailey worked with them, we began to receive information and first-hand accounts from those in the know who had read the manuscript and wanted to speak of their own painful experiences with the Palins.

In all instances, we verified the relationship with our sources and the Palins and insisted on taped interviews or email transcripts. Many of these eye-witnesses had known the Palin family for dozens of years, going back to their early school years.

Some of these revelation appeared in Blind Allegiance (the eye-witness account of Palin violating campaign finance law), but most were cut by our publisher (Howard Books) at the last minute. After all, this book was Frank Bailey’s story and these bombshells were not part of his first-hand experience. It was a difficult call and one we debated long and hard, as the stories are as shocking as the other revelations in our book.

Over the next few days/weeks, The Mudflats will be reporting some of these stories, as told to the authors, directly from these confidential taped interviews and email communications. These accounts are too important to remain untold, especially in light of the fact that the former governor is still weighing her options regarding entering the presidential race in the coming weeks (not to mention the continuation of ridiculously fabricated stories that ignore reality-not just in Sarah Palin’s own books but now Bristol Palin’s whitewashed biography as well).

Our object in writing Blind Allegiance was always to disseminate information, reveal the truth, and ultimately let an informed public decide if this potential candidate is capable or worthy of holding the media spotlight, a place in the conservative movement, or the highest office in the land. It is in that spirit that we chose to share what we have learned.

Ken Morris and Jeanne Devon

Time to get the giant Caesar-sized bowl and the double Costco bag of Crazy Croutons. Sarah Palin delivered a monstrous serving of word salad after the Iowa premiere of “The Undefeated.”  It appears that the potential presidential candidate was unconcerned with having prepared remarks of any kind, and simply let all those buzz words out of her head, in no particular order. The full transcript of the video is below.

My favorite part is when she explains that we don’t need foreign countries because God gave us the oil and the gas and the coal and we can be totally self-sufficient and not need Saudi Arabia. So, who gave the oil to the Saudis? And didn’t God, by that argument, give us the sun and the wind? The mind reels. Except if you’re at the Pella Opera House watching this movie, and in that case the mind just sits there empty and occasionally makes the mouth go, “Woooooo!”

OK, I don’t want to ruin any more for you, so grab your salad fork (the one on the outside) and let’s dig in.It appears that whoever was taping the speech missed the first part and came in mid-sentence, which totally doesn’t matter.   My comments, as always, are in red.

…so our state could be a contributor to the rest of the U.S., instead of a taker from the U.S. because we have the energy up there that we can be producing, we can be supplying to allow all of us energy independence, energy security. We worked so hard on that. We worked so hard on ethics reform. We worked hard on cutting budgets and vetoing the largest amounts of money in our state’s history, and all those things that the lamestream media completely ignores and wants to dismiss, and yet that set a foundation for what our administration was going to be all about.(And that must be why more people in Alaska, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic President since Johnson, would rather vote for Barack Obama in 2012, than you. See poll HERE.)

So it’s it’s very humbling to know that someone has put such effort into documenting what our team was able to accomplish. And it was a pretty simple agenda. It was all about smaller smarter government, putting the faith and the power back into the people of our state and of course that needs to uh be transitioned into our nation where the people of this country are empowered again and individual rights and freedoms are once again embraced by Americans,  and that will bring us back to the exceptional place that America should be.

But humbling to know that someone has put such effort into documenting my team’s efforts, but even more than that, at the same time as acknowledging what this has documented for me personally. It’s just the the realization that that it’s not about me. (What it means to me personally is that it’s not about me?) The movie’s not about me – it’s about America’s values; it’s about the work ethic that you here in Iowa you all embrace. (Not like those lazy people that live near water that I’m not going to show my movie anywhere near) This film really illustrates a person, a people’s desire to be involved in the greatest government in our world’s history. Wanting to be involved for the right reasons here in America because we are exceptional. Our founding documents, our charters of liberty created a blueprint that would allow us towards more perfect of a union if we would just follow this blueprint so people wanting to be involved with the democratic process within a republic – all of you wanting to be involved for the right reasons. That’s what this film illustrates. (I don’t know what any of that means.)

Got into politics for the right reasons twenty years ago, stayed in politics, put up with what the media does to all of us for the right reasons, and it’s to protect our Constitution. (Make it stop!) It’s to protect the opportunities we all have here in America that has made us so exceptional and to continue to allow us to be an exceptional nation, and we don’t need to transform America into anything else. We need to restore all that is good and free about America.

So, what is so impressive to me about this film is how that is illustrated – not Sarah Palin, not even my record, but the values that are embraced, held by so many good patriotic hard-working Americans who understand freedom, who understand how important it is to fight for freedom – for the opportunities that God has given us here. We’re not going to squander it. We’re not gonna blow it. We’re gonna do… we’re gonna go down fightin’! (Does that mean you know you ARE “going down?”)

What this film shows is that in America, anyone can make a difference. You don’t need a title. You don’t need a political position. Anyone can make a difference being willing to be involved and to sacrifice much, to sacrifice reputation, to sacrifice time of leisure and and perhaps other things that you would love to be able to do but instead you’re going to put your efforts into doing what’s right for other people, providing great opportunities for other people, that provides hope for other people, and that’s what this country needs is not the “hopey changey” stuff that you heard about on the campaign trail, but real hope. And you know where real hope comes from? (I’m afraid to ask but I think you’re going to tell me anyway) Real hope comes from realizing what it is that God has blessed this country with. Realizing that he has shed his grace on thee, realizing what he has provided this country and then doing something about it. What he has provided America – we have the natural resources, we have the farmland, we have the oil and the natural gas and the coal. We have the resources to be self-sufficient. We don’t have to rely on Saudi Arabia, on Venezuela, (inaudible) <—– It doesn’t matter that there’s an inaudible part in something which in its entirety is unintelligible.

We don’t have to rely on foreign countries to produce for America. Yes, actually… we do at the moment. We don’t have to be subsidizing drilling in Brazil. We have to get… our government has to get out of the way and let our private sector do what it does best in responsibly developing our natural resources, and then creating  jobs. Yeah, think of all those oil spill clean up jobs from the responsible private sector exploration in the Gulf! Great for the economy! Our government needs to back off, let the private sector, our job creators grow more jobs by keeping more of what we earn so that we can prioritize and reinvest according to our own priorities.

What God has provided us with natural resources, with ingenuity, with land mass here in America, with our founding documents that are based on Judeo-Christian beliefs, based on time tested truth. (Oil, gas and the Constitution is the new Faith, Hope and Charity) It’s really quite a simple solution if you consider what the problems are facing America, if we could just get back to that responsible development of natural resources, of letting our job creators do what they do best, and of getting back to those Judeo-Christian principles that our founding documents were crafted upon.

Those three relatively simple things to do would get America back on the right course. *slams head in the door*

And it’s an honor to get to be with you all today – for Todd (isn’t he supposed to be fishing about now?) and for me and for my friends to get to be with you all today in a place that gets it. You guys understand that work ethic, that patriotism, those wonderful things about America that maybe some others in the land, certainly in our national government, our federal government need to understand a bit more of – you can help ‘em share that message. Hopefully the film will help share that message, not about me but about the values of America that make us exceptional and that we continue to embrace those values and live ‘em out, America forever being THE light, the beacon of hope for other countries looking to see what is that they should emulate to ultimately create a more prosperous, healthy and peaceful world. America can be that light again, an exceptional exceptional place, and it’s people like you who can do it.

So thank you so much for being here tonight. God bless you.

At this point I’m just hugging myself and rocking.  Sarah Palin has become her own sock puppet. Pass the croutons…

~Thick and fast they came at last, and more, and more, and more!

Here’s a plate of slurpable stories to start your week. Source links are in the title. Start shucking!

Pay Up, Joe

An Alaska judge on Friday ordered that failed U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller pay more than $17,300 in legal costs incurred by the state in fighting Miller’s challenge to last year’s election.

Don’t even get me started.

OK, I’ll start. First the disclaimer – I didn’t vote for Joe, would never vote for him, am ideologically opposed to his political philosophy, and have written extensively on all of these things. I am no Joe apologist. BUT. He was absolutely correct to challenge Alaska’s outdated and flawed election system. The machines used to count votes here in Alaska have been outlawed in California. They decommissioned thousands of them at great expense. And now because Miller challenged the vote, he’ll be footing the bill, sending a message to future candidates who step out on that limb to try to fix the system. For a full wrap-up of all the reasons Miller had a point, click HERE. And HERE. And HERE.

The only thing that might distract me from fuming over this is a…

FROG Attack!

If you’re going to be sneaky, at least do it with style and grammatical consistency. That’s what I say. And it seems that the National Security Agency (NSA) agrees. Yes, boys and girls, the NSA has a “Style Guide.” In addition to grammar tips and advice on usage,

We learn that C3 is a symbol for command, control and communications, FROG is an acronym for “Free Rocket Over Ground” (Not to be referred to as a missile) and “conducted operations” and “likely scenario” are listed under “hackneyed phrases.”

“Missile?” “Likely scenario?”   That is soooo last year.

Back to the Movies

In the never-ending world of Palin…stuff, there is always more. First the spin, then the anti-spin. It’s a wonder we’re not just wearing helmets and clutching our midsections to keep from throwing up.

Oh, wait.

As your theatrical anti-venom to the latest Palin puffumentary “The Undefeated,” veteran filmmaker Nick Broomfield presents a film that will cast a critical eye on the ex-half-governor. It will be filled with interviews, and is due to screen next week in L.A. for potential buyers.

A trailer for the film features interviews with former Alaska legislative director John Bitney and former state senate president Lyda Green, both of whom describe an “unengaged” Palin who made of a habit of texting on her mobile during important meetings and legislative sessions.

“I never felt that Sarah was ever connected to the business that was going on in the Capitol,” says Green, a Republican who retired from politics two years ago. “It was always, I thought, a rather cursory attendance when she was there; lack of interest, and she’d generally have her two Blackberries and was texting most of the time.”

Speaking of Crazy Governors…

Seems like Rod Blagojevich, who dared to challenge the great state of Alaska in the Crazy Governor Craze-Off, has finally gotten his comeuppance. His retrial is over, and a jury has convicted him for essentially trying to sell Obama’s former senate seat. He’ll spend the next 6 1/2 10-20 years in the Grey Bar Hotel despite his pleas for mercy from the jury. (Grab your hankies, everyone)

Blagojevich seemed to believe he could talk his way out of trouble from the witness stand. Indignant one minute, laughing the next, seemingly in tears once, he endeavored to counteract the blunt, greedy man he appeared to be on FBI wiretaps. He apologized to jurors for the four-letter words that peppered the recordings.

“When I hear myself swearing like that, I am an F-ing jerk,” he told jurors.

He clearly sought to solicit sympathy. He spoke about his working-class parents and choked up recounting the day he met his wife, the daughter of a powerful Chicago alderman. He reflected on his feelings of inferiority at college where other students wore preppy “alligator” shirts.

One of Blagojevich’s classmates (who may or may not have been wearing an “alligator shirt”) was none other than former Attorney General under the Palin administration, Talis Colberg who stepped down shortly after telling administration officials and Todd Palin, who had received legislative subpoenas that they didn’t really have to show up. Small world.

And a rapidly warming one…

A whale! Shalom!

A grey whale was spotted recently off the coast of Israel. At first, this sounds like good news. Grey whales have been extinct in the Atlantic when they were hunted to extinction there in the 1700s. But microscopic plankton have migrated across polar regions to the Atlantic for the first time in 800,000 years as well. The effects of shrinking ice in the northern polar region is beginning to have an effect.

“The implications are enormous. It’s a threshold that has been crossed,” said Philip C. Reid, of the Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science in Plymouth, England.

“It’s an indication of the speed of change that is taking place in our world in the present day because of climate change,” he said in a telephone interview Friday.

Reid said the last time the world witnessed such a major incursion from the Pacific was 2 million years ago, which had “a huge impact on the North Atlantic,” driving some species to extinction as the newcomers dominated the competition for food.

Sarah Palin’s One Nation bus tour has screeched to a halt. After the media reported it had been canceled, her Facebook page explained her summer plans on June 22 in a note titled:

*Sigh* Reports of Tour Demise are Greatly Exaggerated

The coming weeks are tight because civic duty calls (like most everyone else, even former governors get called up for jury duty) and I look forward to doing my part just like every other Alaskan.

I didn’t put the *sigh* in there. Just to be clear. That was the actual title of the post. The beleaguered exhalation came from Palin herself. She then went on to say that the wheels on the bus would go round and round “when the time comes.”

Apparently, in just a few short days, the “coming weeks” have become less “tight.” Sarah Palin and her husband, the ex-half-First Dude, have decided to suspend their suspension of the family vacation/One Nation bus tour, and the impending responsibility of jury duty to go to the movies. It’s actually a big fancy movie premiere! In Iowa.

~Iowa, home of corn, and the Iowa Caucuses

The conservative filmmaker Stephen Bannon’s Palin puffumentary, titled “The Undefeated” will be making its official premiere screening this coming Tuesday. When the title is in itself  a misnomer, you know what you’re in for. But if you want the grizzly (mama) details, my review is HERE, because I got to see an advanced screening in Minneapolis last week. That’s right, I’ve already enjoyed all the oil-drippin’, zebra-rippin’, bridge-collapsin’, nuclear fallout-rainin’ imagery on the big screen. And my brain has almost stopped bleeding.

Not everyone feels this way, apparently. I was particularly amused by a bit of spam I found in the comments for that review. I’m sure it was copied and pasted on websites far and wide. We know that Palin wrote her own letters to the editor praising herself, so perhaps it was she herself who shared these thoughts:

“The Undefeated” is an interesting, endearing, and educational documentary that the entire family can enjoy together; and, of course, gorgeous, gracious, gifted Gov. Sarah Palin possesses more screen presence, natural beauty, charisma, and seductive allure than any film actress in the history of motion pictures. Expect “The Undefeated” to do very well at the box-office this summer.

Yes, the 9-year olds are going to love the whole 45 minute section on oil taxes, and the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act.  Or perhaps they’ll just be mesmerized by her “seductive allure.”

The version I saw, is apparently not the “final cut.” I’m desperately hoping they didn’t cut out my favorite line.

Palin: “There are three words that define Alaska’s economic future – The Natural Gas Pipeline.”

Comedy gold.

But don’t worry. You won’t have to fly to Iowa to buy a ticket to the film that one Palinbot on Twitter speculates will be “bigger than Harry Potter.” Well, not if you’re lucky enough to live in one of the cities that will be showing this epic motion picture when it opens to the public on July 15th. Get ready Dallas, Denver, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Atlanta, Orange County, Phoenix, Houston, Indianapolis, and Kansas City – buckle your seat belts because here she comes.

Hey. Stephen Bannon isn’t the only one who can do gratuitous visual effects. (I bow deeply and bask in your applause)