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Posts Tagged ‘Tell-All Books’

Palin Staffer Sells Out for the Big Bucks

In Disappearing Ink, Palinography, Sarah Palin on 21/02/2011 at 17:30

Frank Bailey worked his way into Sarah Palin’s favor as a volunteer in her campaign for governor of Alaska, to become one her closest advisors in that office. He has since “been forced to reconsider his actions on Palin’s behalf in terms of his deep Christian faith … ” for money.

For the second time since Sarah Palin left him behind upon her resignation, Bailey is shopping a “tell-all” of his years as a staff member in her office. This time he has secured the services of New York literary agent Carol Mann to pedal his trashy opus, “Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of our Tumultuous Years.”

According to some in the publishing industry Bailey stands to make as much as $100,000 up front, and between $500,000 and $1 million in total for his scandalous tell-all.

In his quest for publication, from the get-go, Bailey plays fast and loose with the facts, by alleging that Palin made a political appointment to the state Supreme Court as personal payoff. The former staffer claims that the governor appointed a pro-choice judge rather than pro-lifer to the state Supreme Court for ruling in her sister’s favor in her custody dispute with state trooper Mike Wooten.

The dispute between Wooten and his then wife, Molly, Palin’s sister, resulted in the “Trooper-Gate” scandal, which was concocted by DNC operatives in the media to derail the 2008 McCain-Palin campaign. The fact is, both of the judges eligible for the appointment to the court were pro-choice, and the one Palin ultimately selected was never assigned to her sister’s custody case.

With that kind of command of the facts, Bailey may be able to secure a recently opened anchor position at MSNBC when book sales die down.

There will no doubt be more leaks in days to come, all designed to interest Random House et al.

One reason Bailey’s previous book failed to attract a publisher was that he was playing in the big pool—the ultimate mud puddle. Virtually every disreputable writer and journalist in America has taken an underhanded shot a Palin over the last two and a half years; even heretofore mainstream journalists have not been able to resist the temptation to go tabloid where the beautiful conservative firebrand is concerned.

In this era of microwavable success where—in the words of Tom Petty—“it seems people want to … start at ‘American Idol’ and go on to some form of instant fame from there,” what Bailey is attempting to do has been almost legitimized. Much of it may be the result of under teaching morality and ethics in our schools, but more often than not it is simply laziness. For a man like Bailey, who missed the “brass ring” on the Palin bandwagon, writing a tell-all probably seemed like easy way back into the game.

In the end, of course, he is just a bottom feeder like the others who sell out those who trusted them with their most closely guarded secrets, or who pedal thinly veiled lies for a price.

Frank Bailey will sell his manuscript this time, if for no other reason than the fact that nothing else has worked in the Left’s attempt to destroy Sarah Palin. He will have no integrity left but he will, like Scott McClellan before him, have momentary albeit fleeting success.

And then he will join the legions of others who have bitten the hands that fed them, and become an ugly footnote in the history of a great life.

A GOP Turncoat Bites the Dust

In Sarah Palin, The Haters, The Way Far Right on 12/01/2010 at 08:15

Former McCain Strategist, Steve Schmidt

Is it just me or is Washington getting more like bad television every week? Watching Steve Schmidt last night on 60 Minutes, I thought for a moment I’d tuned onto a spinoff of West Wing: “The Dumb Republican Who Didn’t Get His Candidate to the West Wing.”

Everyone knows why 60 Minutes would consider yet another hit piece on Sarah Palin newsworthy. I mean she’s a born-again Christian, she decided to have a Down’s syndrome baby, she’s against gay marriage – she has to be stupid. Right? Right?

But what does Schmidt hope to accomplish with this “insider edition” of the McCain Campaign’s disastrous attempt to win the Presidency? Remember, he started this by floating anti-Palin rumors and going on Larry King Live with his “catastrophic” statement against her.

Here is the downside for Schmidt, as I see it. Before last night, 95 percent of the public had no idea that he was the guy who ran the most embarrassing Republican campaign in history. Weird Al Yankovich could have run against Barack Obama and won. So I am at a loss to understand why he would want to continue to trash Palin more than a year after the election.

Let me get this straight. Is Schmidt saying that as head of McCain Campaign day-to-day operations he didn’t properly vet Palin? Or is he saying that he knew the Governor was unqualified but didn’t say anything before McCain chose her? Or is it simply that he wasn’t loyal to McCain in the first place and wanted him to fail? Because I’m not buying his assertion that Palin was a last desperate choice over a bad burrito dinner.

Or … or could it be that Steve Schmidt, as an active proponent of gay marriage, finds himself at odds with the Governor’s core beliefs? Could it be that he is a caustic critic of conservative Christian ideology? Just who isn’t being honest here?

Whatever his answer – and it must be one or all of the above – Steve Schmidt has shown himself to be, at the very least, unethical and untrustworthy to any candidate that would seek his services in the future.

With his appearance on 60 Minutes, Schmidt will undoubtedly now do the obligatory talk show perp walk: Oprah, Larry King, and Ellen DeGeneres, then fade into “also-ran” history with a Scott McClellan jacket. But this is such good bad TV that I think I’ll write up a treatment and send it over to Viacom. I’ll pitch Richard Dreyfuss for the McCain roll; he can use the work.

Gee, do you think Catherine Zeta-Jones would look good in glasses?

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