“While careful not to say anything that might make her rear her head, some in the GOP Establishment whisper that they hope Palin stays in Wasilla. She may be useful in raising funds and drawing crowds, but Palin’s unseriousness and carnival antics damage the brand. ‘There’s a big piece of the Republican Party that doesn’t want her to run,’ said one national Republican strategist.”
Really, let’s cut to the chase here. Some of the details in the New York magazine article just confirm what I’ve previously noted, i.e., Palin’s inaccessibility to the press, her tendency to rely on a small number of close advisers, etc. But this kind of dishy “behind-the-scenes” feature story wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the willingness of GOP insiders to badmouth Palin behind her back. And being badmouthed constantly by anonymous Republicans only increases Palin’s defensiveness. Why should she trust anyone, when it seems there is an incessant stream of tattletales running to whisper damaging gossip to reporters?
UPDATE: A friend wonders why I said nothing about this part of Sherman’s story:
The only real blip concerned her ghostwriter, Lynn Vincent, a writer for the Evangelical World magazine, whom Palin chose from a short list of candidates presented to her by HarperCollins. After news of Vincent’s selection leaked, critics seized on a January 2009 pro-life piece she had written for World titled “Black Genocide” — as well as her association with the co-writer of her 2006 book Donkey Cons, former Washington Times writer Robert Stacy McCain (no relation), who had a history of racially charged statements and associations — to claim that Vincent was racist. Vincent, who had collaborated on a New York Times best seller about racial reconciliation, told me that she was deeply hurt by the racism allegation and considered suing the Daily Beast for a piece by writer Max Blumenthal headlined “Palin’s Noxious Ghostwriter.” But when the media shifted its focus to Palin’s next adventure, Vincent dropped the lawsuit idea.
The problem with suing for libel (and as a journalist, I thank God for this) is that under the Sullivan precedent, it’s almost impossible for a “public figure” to win a libel suit. Like politicians and entertainers, an author is more or less automatically a public figure, thus requiring proof of actual malice. And as opposed to, say, a false accusation of criminal behavior, the charge of “racism” is damnably hard to disprove, which is why it is slung around so frequently in political discourse.
So there was no percentage in Lynn suing the Daily Beast, besides which going to court over what was clearly a third-hand guilt-by-association smear wouldn’t help Palin — and helping Palin was what Lynn was hired to do, after all.
And shame on those people who keep spreading malicious rumors that Max Blumenthal was arrested in a raid on a so-called “ladyboy” brothel in Phuket!
UPDATE I: Ian Lazaran at Conservatives for Palin debunks a lot of Sherman’s article, which repeats several previously debunked memes.
UPDATE III: Allahpundit ho-hums:
Poor Dave Weigel was so bereft of juicy tidbits from the piece for his “Those Darned Wingnuts” beat at WaPo that he was forced to highlight the fact that she writes her own Facebook posts and how she fits into TLC’s programming strategy.
Yeah, Dave: Tell your bosses to rename it “Those Darn Wingnuts.”
