The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin

by Joe McGinniss

  On March 21, Paul Jenkins predicted in the Anchorage Daily News that AGIA would become “a train wreck of monumental proportions.” Going a step further, he asked whether Sarah actually wanted a gas line. “If the dragons were slain,” he wrote, “wouldn’t she then have to be governor, with all the grinding minutiae that entails? What would she use to fuel the populism she hopes will catapult her into national office? No war, no enemies, no glory and no whipping boys is a poor recipe for her style of us-against-them populism.”

  On the same day, “her-against-us” protesters staged yet another demonstration in Anchorage, this time decrying Sarah’s rejection of the federal stimulus funds they felt Alaska needed. The protest took place outside the city’s public library, as legislators met inside to hear from constituents who objected to Sarah’s refusal to accept the nearly $300 million that the Obama administration was offering to the state.

  One protestor held a sign that read simply, MAMA GRIZZLY, YOU FORGOT YOUR CUBS. Inside the building, to raucous shouts and applause, an Anchorage special education teacher said, “Our governor has chosen to pander to her political pipe dream …”

  In the midst of this chaos, Sarah took time for a long talk on the phone with Rick Joyner, a Third Wave proselytizer and founder of MorningStar Ministries, of Charlotte, North Carolina.

  Two years earlier, Joyner, who was closely linked to a militant dominionist movement called Joel’s Army, had prophesied the imminent coming of the kingdom of God. “At first, it may seem like totalinarianism [sic],” he said, describing “a point of necessary control while people are learning.”

  Joel’s Army, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as “an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian ‘dominion’ on non-believers,” was led by Todd Bentley, founder of Lakeland Revival, a charismatic Christian church based in Florida.

  Bentley has defined the mission of Joel’s Army: “To aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion … The trumpet is sounding, calling on-fire revolutionary believers to enlist in Joel’s Army … Many are now ready to be mobilized.”

  Bentley was a protégé of Rick Joyner, who described him as “a man of exceptional theological depth” and who praised his “impartation of faith, power and fire.” Assembly of God pastor Kalnins used Joyner’s writings in his Master’s Commission program and led students on a pilgrimage to Joyner’s church in Charlotte. During the 2008 presidential campaign, MorningStar’s “head of prophecy,” Steve Thompson, headlined a conference at the Wasilla Assembly of God.

  In a video released on March 25, 2009, Joyner did not say whether he and Sarah had discussed the mobilization of Joel’s Army during their extended conversation. He did say, “Democrats are extremely threatened by her, and I believe rightly so. I believe there is a spiritual authority and a calling on Governor Palin that is extraordinary … I believe she has a national calling on her life … When I first saw her on television, I felt right away, ‘I am listening to the President of the United States.’ … I want the Lord’s leadership … We can’t allow the media to win with Sarah Palin.”

  BUT NOT EVEN prayer warriors could prevent the filing in late March 2009 of yet another ethics complaint, this one accusing Sarah of using her office for personal profit by appearing at the start of the Iron Dog the year before wearing clothes that bore the logo of the company that sponsored Todd.

  This one, filed by blogger Linda Kellen Biegle, pushed Sarah even further over whatever edge she’d been clinging to. Sarah’s prepared response asked, “Are Alaskans outraged, or at least tired of this yet?” The statement said, “Another frivolous ethics charge … This would be hilarious if it weren’t so expensive for the state to process these accusations and for me to defend against these bogus harassments.”

  Sarah did not address the question raised by the complaint: How much had Todd’s Iron Dog sponsor, Arctic Cat, paid Sarah to appear at the start of the race sporting the company logo? And if they hadn’t paid her directly, to what financial extent had they sponsored Todd, with the understanding that, when the right time came, Sarah would be a walking, talking example of product placement?

  In 2007, Arctic Cat had paid Todd $7,500 in return for his using one of their machines in the Iron Dog. How much more was it worth to the company in 2008 to have Sarah, as governor, parade around in Arctic Cat gear? Neither Sarah nor the company would disclose the amount.

  What was later recognized as Sarah’s parting slap to Alaska’s face came on March 26, when she nominated her former lawyer, Wayne Anthony Ross, to succeed Colberg as state attorney general. The Daily News described Ross as “a gun rights advocate who blazes around town in a red Hummer with the personalized tag WAR.”

  A member of the board of the National Rifle Association, Ross had helped to found the antiabortion group Alaska Right to Life and had served as honorary cochairman of Sarah’s gubernatorial campaign. He was well known for his opposition to “rural preference,” a policy that gave Alaskans who practiced a subsistence lifestyle greater hunting rights than those granted to people who, like Chuck Heath, hunted for sport.

  The Alaska Federation of Natives was quick to oppose the nomination. The organization’s cochairman said, “It almost looked like she was rubbing our face in Anthony Ross’s appointment. Like rubbing our faces on the ground, saying, ‘Here, take this.’ ”

  The legislature opened confirmation hearings for Ross on April 8. He was confronted immediately with a 1993 letter to the state bar association in which he called homosexuals “degenerates.”

  During the third day of hearings, Ross was asked about his allegedly having said in a 1991 talk to an Anchorage group called Dads Against Discrimination, “If a guy can’t rape his wife, who’s he gonna rape? There wouldn’t be an issue with domestic violence if women would learn to keep their mouth shut.” Ross heatedly denied having made the remarks, adding, “Anybody said that to me, we’d have a little confrontation because that’s a bunch of crap.”

  Under further questioning about his use of words such as immoral, degenerates, and perversion to describe homosexuals, Ross said, “I hate lima beans. I never liked lima beans. But if I was hired to represent the United Vegetable growers … would I tell you if I disliked lima beans? No, because my job is to represent the United Vegetable Growers.”

  Meanwhile, as the hearings continued, Sarah publicly feuded with Levi Johnston. “We’re disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention and fortune, are engaging in flat out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion,” Sarah’s chief spokesperson, Meg Stapleton, said.

  Dan Fagan wrote, “Imagine that. Someone in a quest for fame, attention and fortune, engaging in flat out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion. I wonder if Stapleton knows anyone else like that.”

  On April 13, at the start of the final week of the 2009 legislative session, Sarah’s once-steadfast allies in the Democratic Party broke with her publicly, issuing a statement that said, “She is putting her national political ambitions ahead of the needs of Alaska.”

  It was not a fresh complaint. During the 2008 session, legislators had taken to wearing “Where’s Sarah?” buttons to highlight her frequent absences from Juneau and her disengagement even when she was there.

  “Where is Sarah Palin?” state party chairwoman Patti Higgins asked now. “She is going to be halfway across the country, she’s at a right-to-life fundraiser … We need a full-time governor.” Her chief of staff responded, “We did not anticipate that the governor’s political opponents would want their hands held in the final hours of the session.”

  Sarah herself was at an antiabortion banquet in Evansville, Indiana, where, the Evansville Courier and Press said, she “was besieged … by people urging her to run for president in 2012.” The story quoted a security guard as saying, “Some people would just shout it out, and you’d see others just asking her. I heard it two or
three times a minute … She’d just smile and wave. She was very gracious. Never once did I see her say or do anything that made her look less than sincere, like rolling her eyes when no one was looking.”

  A political scientist at the University of Southern Indiana called Sarah’s appearance “the first major event of the 2012 presidential campaign.”

  SHE DIDN’T NEED Alaska anymore, and Alaska no longer needed her. Wayne Anthony Ross said that, as attorney general, one of his tasks would be to stop “having barbs thrown at the governor all the time.”

  The legislature threw a barb his way on April 16, rejecting his appointment by a vote of 35–23. It was the first time in Alaskan history that someone nominated to head a state agency had been rejected.

  Just how far Sarah’s stock had fallen in the state was made clear by a Paul Jenkins column in the Daily News on May 3. “There are signs of frustration and anger,” he wrote. “People already are wondering whether she will, or should, consider running for governor next year. She could lose.”

  That was a risk she had no intention of taking.

  On May 12 she announced that she’d signed a multimillion-dollar book deal with Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins publishing company. She said the book would give her a chance to tell her story “unrestrained and unfiltered.” HarperCollins announced that the book would be co-published for the Christian market by its subsidiary Zondervan.

  In early June she went to New York to make a speech, lead a parade, and attend a Yankees game. Then she went to Washington to attend a Republican fund-raising dinner. She was interviewed by Fox News, CNN, and NBC.

  Life Outside seemed far more appealing than the prospect of spending the summer on the shores of Lake Lucille surrounded by a swelling chorus of critics whom, in her binary way, she called “haters.” As Howard Bess said, in Sarah’s world, “everything and everyone is either good or evil.”

  Economist Gregg Erickson went binary in the Juneau Empire, writing that Sarah was “either a cynical hypocrite or delusional.” In a June 22 editorial, the newspaper said, “If it wasn’t noticeable before, it is now painfully obvious: Alaska is no longer big enough for Sarah Palin … Governor Palin needs to decide soon what she’s going to do with the next year: run the state of Alaska or run for national office.”

  ON THE AFTERNOON of July 3, standing in her backyard, on the shore of Lake Lucille, Sarah announced her decision: she would resign as governor before the end of the month. The speech in which she made her announcement was so jittery, incoherent, and just plain daffy that many who heard it feared for Sarah’s mental and emotional health. Almost everyone—not only her growing bevy of critics, but even the dwindling band of true believers—felt it signaled the end of Sarah’s political career.

  They were wrong. She had no intention of disappearing. She knew that, unencumbered by the demands of the governorship, she’d be free to pursue the office she’d had in mind even before she became mayor of Wasilla: the presidency of the United States.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE TIME has come to strike the tent.

  That may seem like a strange thing to say in the last chapter of a book about the star performer of the circus. But no matter how much my book sales might benefit from a Palin presidential campaign in 2012, I sincerely hope that the whole extravaganza, which has been unblushingly underwritten by a mainstream media willing to gamble the nation’s future in exchange for the cheap thrill of watching a clown in high heels on a flying trapeze, is nearing the end of its run.

  The sheer giddy spectacle of Sarah has mesmerized the media for far too long. Quitting her job as Alaska’s governor enabled Sarah to make the jump from politician to full-time celebrity. Her new status meant that it no longer mattered what she did or said—the mere fact of her doing or saying it made it news. The same was true for other members of her family. And even for people whose only connection to her was that they’d briefly lived in her neighborhood.

  Thus, my moving out of the house next door to hers in September 2010 became national news. “Joe McGinniss is packing his bags and notebooks and leaving Sunday for his home in Massachusetts to write the book he has been researching on the former governor and GOP vice presidential candidate,” an Associated Press story reported.

  I moved in, I moved out: nothing newsworthy happened in between. But Sarah could not get over the fact that I’d been there at all. At the start of an October 1 telephone interview, right-wing radio host Mark Levin asked her, “By the way, did that jerk next door leave yet?”

  “He left,” she said. “Just in time. We had a big windstorm, too, and half the fence fell down. So he left and we’re gonna hopefully get back to normal … the freak.”

  Even six weeks later, on the premiere of her TLC series, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, she was still obsessing about me. The first episode opens with Sarah seated at a table on the patio outside her house, wearing a yellow jersey and scribbling in a notebook.

  In a voice-over, she says: “Where I like to do a lot of my writing and researching—especially on a beautiful day—is outside, on our slab, where I get to take in the beauty of the lake.”

  Then Todd approaches and says, “Gettin’ some work done?”

  Sarah answers in a whisper: “Yeah.”

  Todd: “So, ah, you comfortable up here?”

  Sarah (sotto voce): “I am if you want to peek around the corner and see if he’s over there.”

  We don’t see Todd actually peeking. The next shot is of Sarah, wearing a blue top (indicating that this part was filmed on a different day), saying, “Our being here certainly has changed this summer”—cut to a shot of my house, taken from the lake—“because of this new neighbor.”

  Then we have a closeup of my deck, with my American and Alaskan flags hanging from the railing. And lo and behold, there, sitting on a chair reading a book, is someone whose face has been intentionally blurred but who looks a lot like me.

  Cut back to the opening scene on the patio.

  “Yeah, he’s probably over there,” Todd says.

  “Do you want me to look?” Sarah says.

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “You need to drill a little tiny hole there, a peephole, and let me look through and see where he is,” Sarah says.

  The next shot shows Todd by the lake, saying, “Our summer fun has been kind of taken away from us because of a new neighbor next door, who’s writing a hit piece on my wife. I mean, life’s about bein’ productive, but these people want to seek and destroy.”

  Then it’s back to Sarah (yellow top) and Todd on the slab. Sarah says, “He doesn’t need to be seein’ what I’m writing and reading, right?”

  “Yeah,” Todd agrees. She pats him affectionately on the leg.

  “Todd and his buddies got out there and built a fourteen-foot-high fence, and I’m very thankful for that,” blue-top Sarah says. “By the way, I thought that was a good example, what we just did, others could look at and say, ‘Oh, this is what we need to do to secure our nation’s border.’ ”

  Then we see Todd and yellow-top Sarah get up from the patio table. Sarah says, “I want Piper to play on the other side of the house, too, okay?” As they walk away, Sarah says in a voice-over, “I think it’s an intrusion and an invasion of our privacy and I don’t like it.”

  Back to blue-top Sarah: “Some reporters have said I was overreacting, and I wanted to ask them, ‘How would you feel if some dude who you knew was out to getcha’ ”—then a cut to yellow-top Sarah on the bed of a pickup truck on the other side of house—‘moved in to keep you away from your kids? How would you feel?’ ”

  About twenty minutes later in the episode, Sarah returns to the subject again. As she and Todd and Piper are walking from the lake to their house after a floatplane trip, she says, in voice-over, “And Piper spies, right there in the next-door neighbor’s yard, our neighbor.” This is followed by the same shot used earlier of me reading a book on my deck.

  “He’s an author who’s writing a book abou
t us,” Sarah continues, “and Piper whispered to me as we were comin’ up the lawn, ‘Mom, that neighbor’s out there, he’s watchin’ us, he’s watchin’ us.’ ”

  The camera shows Sarah and Piper walking up the lawn.

  “Where is he?” Sarah asks. “Are you gonna wave to him? We’ll just keep walkin’.” Then she asks, “Is he takin’ pictures?” Although I never took a picture of any member of the Palin family, Piper nods. She seems already aware of how she’s supposed to respond, regardless of the truth. Sarah walks faster, with an exaggerated stride. “Don’t give him the pleasure of takin’ a picture.”

  Then we’re back to blue-top Sarah, facing the camera. She says, “I would think, really, at the end of the day, he’s gonna be bored to death if that’s all he has to do is observe our normal, kind of boring family and our activities, but”—then a cut for the third time to the same shot of me reading—“it’s just none of his flippin’ business.”

  The scene—if that’s what we can call such a spliced-together mishmash of voice-over and footage taken at different times—ends by returning to the shot of yellow-top Sarah, Todd, and Piper walking toward their house.

  “He was stuck inside, writin’ an ugly book,” Sarah says to her nine-year-old daughter. “See, we one-upped him, Piper, we had a good day. And he’s stuck in his house.” She and Piper exchange a high five.

  A NUMBER of reviewers of Sarah Palin’s Alaska commented on the irony of Sarah complaining about my intrusiveness even as she invaded her own children’s privacy by thrusting them in front of TLC cameras in return for $250,000 per episode. Others, however, swallowed the bait whole, failing to recognize that “reality” television is to reality as love handles are to love.