Joe McGinniss Fires Back at Sarah Palin

AP

Last week, Sarah Palin took to Facebook and the airwaves to slam a journalist who moved into the house next door to her in Wasilla, Alaska, as he writes a book about her.

"Here he is - about 15 feet away on the neighbor's rented deck overlooking my children's play area and my kitchen window," Palin wrote. "Wonder what kind of material he'll gather while overlooking Piper's bedroom, my little garden, and the family's swimming hole?"

Palin also had a big fence erected on her property. (seen at left)

Now journalist Joe McGinniss is firing back.

In an interview on NBC's "Today," McGinnis defended himself and called Palin's comments "ugly innuendo" and "revolting."

McGinnis said he didn't come to Wasilla to spy on the family, but instead traveled there to talk to her longtime acquaintances.

"I'm not observing them at all. I'm here to talk to people who've known them for forty years in Wasilla," he said in the interview. "I don't care how they behave in their backyard. And I don't care what they do in the privacy of their own home. And I don't care what their children do."

The author said he didn't expect attention for living in the house and chose it because the price was right -- $1,500 a month for the three or so months he plans to be there.

"The fact is I'd be living in this house if the Palin's lived on the moon," he added.

McGinniss is the bestselling author of "The Selling of the President," about Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. He also wrote a critical piece about Palin in Portfolio magazine last year.

When asked about whether what he was doing now was "creepy," he had this to say: "Creepy is as creepy does."

He added: "If I lived here and did something creepy, if I did what Sarah Palin is suggesting that I moved here because I had some desire to do, that would be creepy."

Over the weekend, the Wasilla newspaper the Frontiersman published an editorial that pointedly noted a state law that allows the use of deadly force to defend one's property.

The editorial in the Frontiersman, titled "Wasilla fence fascinating for national media outlets," concludes with this sentence: "Finally, those who are fond of Joe McGinnis [sic] might remind him (if he doesn't already know) that Alaska has a law that allows the use of deadly force in protection of life and property."

McGinniss responded to the editorial and reported death threats against him by comparing Palin's tactics to Nazi Germany.

"What I've learned from that...is very informative and I think is probably a lesson for the American people of the power Palin has to incite hated and her willingness and readiness to do it," he said. "She has pushed a button and unleashed the hounds of hell...And that's the same kind of tactic, and I'm not calling her a Nazi, but that's the same kind of tactic that the Nazi troopers used in Germany in the 30s. And I don't think there is any place for it in America."

Sarah Palin Responds to Joe McGinniss' Claims

The managing editor of the Frontiersman, Tom Mitchell, defended the editorial in an interview with CBS News.

"I didn't see it as being controversial. It's just a statement of fact," Mitchell said. "Plus, it was intended to be more humorous than anything."

Wasilla Paper Warns Palin Author of Deadly Force Law
Sarah Palin Builds Fence as Joe McGinniss' Son Denies "Stalker" Claim
Sarah Palin Lashes Out at Journalist Joe McGinniss for Moving Next Door

[ToxicKitty]

LMFAO. They are all so afraid of Sarah Palin they will say and do just about anything to discredit her. McGinnis is a hack who plagiarized large portions of his 1993 book The Last Brother: The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy. In his vendetta to embarrass Sarah Palin he went to Alaska to write an UNAUTHORIZED biography, rented a house next door to the Palins and proceeded to harass and frighten the Palin children. When Palin posted to her Facebook page warning him to leave her children alone he called her a Nazi and said he would "unleashe the hounds of hell" on her. No, this guy doesn't have an agenda. So what if she did cocaine years ago and so what if she had an affair BEFORE her marriage? Obama didn't do any of that and look what a failure he's been as a President. Palin in '12!!!!!

[7colorado]

Where I live a six foot fence is the maximum. I wonder if Sarah got a permit for the monster she built.

[thickredhair]

hahaha, how convenient reporter doing an article and the house next door is up for rent, i don't blame him, he's just doing his job, doesn't palin support average joe americans doing their jobs?


hey wonder if he can see russia too!!! lol to funny

i find it interesting that no one else has made a nazi comparison yet....

[formrusmcsgt]

I'm sure Wasilla has a ton of fine rental properties to choose from...

Palin has nothing to say which is why she's issue to issue looking for something that might resonate....

[wtcmedicdidntforget]

I'll tell you. If i had a crap like that moving right next to me, perhaps he might have the "right" to live anywhere he wants. However I have a right to feel threatened and take it to a new level. It would be hard for my if i was palins husband to not cross the line.... Like take out the trash!

[mmvale]

This man is creepy. Everyone deserves some privacy. So go away, Joe!

[rickr442]

I lived in Alaska,for six years... those people defend their own in ways he does not yet fathom. Joe needs to watch his mouth AND his back.
All he needs is a mustache to fit the 'Wasilla molester' profile...
Lets see, he's all successful and he still wears the Sears Optical glasses? Joe... Lazik!
And hey, network geniuses, Palin is a best selling author, too, right?

[dthur1003]

Okay, let me get this straight!!! A writer, critical of Governer Palin, whe is writing a book about the person he is critical of, just happens to rent a house right next door to the person he is critical of and is writing a book about, was just a coincedence ??? This "journalist" should be on Oblamer's staff if he thinks people are stupid enough to believe this !!!! What an ****** !!!

[Cuda-Driver]

Sarah Pailn has quite the insight. This is the same person who thought:

Africa was a country.
She didn't know there were two Korea's or why.
She said she had foreign policy experience because Russia was on one side of Alaska and Canada was on the other.
She couldn't name a newspaper or magazine that she reads daily.
She couldn't name one supreme court decision that she disagreed with.
She thought Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.
She had be briefed about what the cold war was.
She is against Healthcare the funny thing is that Sarah herself ? and her family? benefit from Government Socialism Health Care, through her husband?s Native Status, and Trig-Prop doesn?t seem to be on her hit list!
She had several notes written on her left hand. The words "Energy", "Tax" and "Lift American Spirits" are clearly visible. There's also what appears to read as "Budget cuts" with the word Budget crossed out.
She was on Glenn Beck and couldn't name any of the Founding Fathers. You could see Glenn Beck trying to holding back his laughter.

She an embarrassment, most of these things I learned in 3rd grade. Yes, I guess she has superior intellect compared to the teabaggers and Bush.

[Cuda-Driver]

jimktt... It was on national television and still on youtube. Why don't you look for yourself. It's All 100% true. Prove just one, (one) thing I said has been proven untrue. When someone listed a similar list about Obama I looked up the 8 things on the list and admitted that two things were true and the rest were not. Lets see you do the same thing and admit the truth. Democrats looks things up and admit the truth. Republicans won't admit the truth.

[Cuda-Driver]

Last I remember it is not illegal to write a book. Mr. McGinniss is free to rent a house anywhere he wants (free country) as long as he doesn't do anything wrong or break any laws. Mr. McGinniss has done nothing wrong.

Sarah Pailin's husband is the one that knocked on McGinnis's door, that's how Sarah found out he was living there. He never did anything to bother them. Palin invaded McGinnis' privacy by taking a picture of him at his home and then published it on Facebook. No one would have known where McGinniss was living if Sarah Palin hadn't told everyone.

Sarah Palin has portrayed Mr. McGinnis as a peeping tom, a pervert, stalker and would be pedophile who wants to look in her children's windows.

McGinniss, is now received death threats. By triggering outrage from right-wing media outlets, Palin "pushed a button and unleashed the hounds of hell."

Palin knows that her rabid and unstable supporters will do her dirty work for her. She plays the victim but she has never been a victim other than the victim of her own idea that she is good for the country.

Sarah has to know when you are a public figure that paparazzi, reporters, detractors, crazy fans -- and even book writers will seek you out, it's par for the course. This case no different. It's not a life I would want but Sarah brought this upon herself and family when she decided to be a public figure.

[Jacquinto]

I think that Joe McGinniss staying next door to the Palin's home is simply how Joe always does his research for any project that he's working on. I met him in Juneau in the early winter of 1975. He was a young best selling author on his first trip to Alaska doing research for his book, "Going To Extremes". I was friends with everyone he wrote about in his chapter on Juneau. I knew them personally and met Joe a few times during his stay in Juneau and hung out with him. I went out with the woman he begins his chapter with in Juneau and through whom he met many of his Juneau subject friends.
I first met him at the Triangle Bar in downtown Juneau. He made some very accurate, participant observer, anthropological observations about my friends. I was impressed with his truthfulness, even when I didn't always like the candid revelations of some of their "going to extremes" behavior. I thought he portrayed some of my friends a little harshly. But I still had to agree with his critical interpretation of them because i understood them and I understood where he was coming from as a new person in Juneau meeting an interesting group like this. He developed his Alaskan themes very powerfully by using my friends as some of the examples of the subject of his book. He tried very hard to understand their lives and not to exaggerate in his investigation of their "extreme" lifestyles that he lived with and studied in Juneau. He wasn't a hostile journalist writing a hostile book about anyone in Alaska 35 years ago when I met him, and he isn't hostile today, as Sarah Palin writes.
I would expect him to be very honest in writing about the Palins just as he was with my friends. Perhaps that's why he wants to be close-by, so he can be even more fair and accurate in his upcoming work of Sarah Palin--The Year Of Living Dangerously. I admire a journalist who goes to all of the trouble that Joe does, for the true story. That's why his writing rings so true and insightful, whether he's writing about Nixon, Bobby Kennedy, or my Juneau friends.
If the Palin's are so paranoid and way over-reactive to his presence next door for a few months, and feel such a strong need to make a big deal out of it in the media, including facebook, --then perhaps that is precisely a part of the usefulness of McGinniss point of harmlessly working on his book nest door. Look what he's drawing out of the Palin's by doing nothing by living next-door. He's always the participant observing anthropoligist. I wish Sarah Palin were more like him. If only she were such a participant observer of life all around her, --as astutely as joe McGinnis is. But then, she would still be in the Governor's office and not running around the country making as much money and notoriety as she can.
The point is that I'm seeing the same methods in the Palin study that Joe McGinniss used in 1975 to share and study the life of my Juneau friends for his non-fiction work. I guess Joe used the same methods on me and my friends as he does by interviewing folks in Wasilla. Too bad Todd and Sarah just do not relax and have a beer with the guy and invite him over for a salmon barbeque. I thought Sarah was supposed to be the typical Alaskan down-home approachable friendly small town hockey mom that everyone can identify with and yuck it up with. Ya Sure, Ya Betcha. That's what we all did when we hosted McGinniss in Juneau. He was great fun !! Seriously, that's what I remember. And he didn't paint an unfair picture of anybody in Juneau. Sure, some of his Juneau subjects probably didn't agree with his interpretations of their questionable behavior. Sarah and her family have nothing to fear. Nobody can stalk Sarah anymore than she's already set herself up to be stalked by the media through her trademark narcissistic behavior.
By Sarah Palin not ignoring this and not taking the high road in abandoning her unfounded fear and hatred of being "stalked" by Joe, this gives us one more proof that she loves to set up the siege mentality. She's like a broken record repeating the constant us versus them mantra -(Fox News brand of liberals vs. conservatives is her whole uneducated boring ball of wax)- the classic persecution dynamic set-up we see in her groups' culture war mentality. It's how she got to where she is today, from the basketball court to the tea parties. It's so predictable, so maverick, so roguish to try to discredit her creepy new obsessed 'journalist' (Sarah's quotes, not mine) neighbor, Joe McGinniss, instead of doing her own hard work of developing herself by learning what the real issues are and not just trying to memorize the next sound bite.
It's going to be an interesting read, this new work by Mr. McGinniss. What other acclaimed journalist-non-fiction writer is getting this close to his subject, with the experience that Joe McGinniss brings to non-fiction writing in the "Going To Extremes" category ?

[Cuda-Driver]

Htos1...There are 50 states and 7 US territories, I will list them for you. By the way there are 57 Muslim countries not states. I saw the video did you? He was not talking about Muslim countries. He did say he visited 57 states but latter clarified he meant to say 57 states and territories. How is that eighth grade education working for you? I have a college degree but I doubt you do...

1
Alaska
2
Texas
3
California
4
Montana
5
New Mexico
6
Arizona
7
Nevada
8
Colorado
9
Wyoming
10
Oregon
11
Idaho
12
Utah
13
Kansas
14
Minnesota
15
Nebraska
16
South Dakota
17
North Dakota
18
Missouri
19
Oklahoma
20
Washington
21
Georgia
22
Michigan
23
Iowa
24
Illinois
25
Wisconsin
26
Florida
27
Arkansas
28
Alabama
29
North Carolina
30
New York
31
Mississippi
32
Pennsylvania
33
Louisiana
34
Tennessee
35
Ohio
36
Kentucky
37
Virginia
38
Indiana
39
Maine
40
South Carolina
41
West Virginia
42
Maryland
43
Vermont
44
New Hampshire
45
Massachusetts
46
New Jersey
47
Hawaii
48
Connecticut
49
Delaware
50
Rhode Island
51
District of Columbia
52
Puerto Rico
53
Northern Mariana Islands
54
US Virgin Islands
55
American Samoa
56
Guam
57
US Minor Outlying Islands

all US states and US territory.

[Cuda-Driver]

desertdwellr... Hey I'll admit he made a mistake. Not the only one but he did clarify that one. I listed two in a previous post that he never clarified. Nobody is perfect but at least a Democrat will admit mistakes.

[dthur1003]

Cuda, maybe you could tell me when Oblamer VISITED Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and
Guam ??? He did say he VISITED them didn't he ???? Not a very good spin attempt. One thought if you are able...try thinking for yourself for a change and stop repeating what your Obama doll says when you pull the string

[peacefulperson]

I've got a nightmare neighbor and I'd still rather have them than a journalist" stalking me in my own yard.