Sarah Palin Calls Reporters "Impotent" and "Limp" as Questions Emerge About Vanity Fair Profile

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: Republicans

(Credit: AP)

Earlier this week, Vanity Fair released a buzzy profile of Sarah Palin that paints the former Alaska governor as an abusive and foul-mouthed phony who is prone to temper tantrums and disconnected from her roots.

In the subsequent days, critics, including Palin herself, have come forward to question the validity of the piece, with Palin casting reporter Michael Joseph Gross as "impotent" and "limp" for his use of anonymous sources.

On Sean Hannity's radio show Wednesday, Palin said this, in reaction to the story: "Those who are impotent and limp and gutless and they go on their anonymous - sources that are anonymous - and impotent, limp and gutless reporters take anonymous sources and cite them as being factual references. It just slays me because it's so absolutely clear what the state of yellow journalism is today that they would take these anonymous sources as fact."

The comment prompted gay magazine The Advocate to complain that Palin may be gay baiting in light of the fact that Gross is gay. Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz wrote on Twitter that while he agress with "Palin on overuse of unnamed sources," he questioned her calling reporters "impotent" and "limp."

"Did she have to go there?" he asked.

Palin's word choice aside, she is not alone in raising doubts about the story, which got Gross on CBS' "The Early Show" Thursday. In Slate, David Weigel reports that Gross' sources are "deeply unhappy" with the story, and he prints an e-mail to Gross from one of them, Anchorage radio and TV host Shannyn Moore, who says she regrets vouching for his credibility.

She writes that she was portrayed in "a completely inaccurate and unfavorable light" in the story and quips that Gross must be "thrilled" to be on television after breaking agreements with sources who had been promised anonymity.

"Shame on you," she writes. "You're not a writer...you're a climber."

Politico's Ben Smith, meanwhile, has twice questioned the factual accuracy of the story. On Wednesday, he pointed to a passage claiming that Palin asked aides to her former running mate John McCain when, from a political perspective, it might be good for her then-pregnant daughter Bristol to get married. The story claims Palin "went on to wonder whether one weekend or another would be more advantageous for media coverage."

A former McCain aide, however, told Smith that while he discussed a Bristol Palin campaign wedding with other aides, Sarah Palin was never brought into the conversation, and a stunt-wedding was never seriously considered.

Smith also writes that the story "focuses on Palin's temper, which may well be a real quality but can't be quite as out-of-control as its portrayed: It isn't something the campaign staff -- even the large number of them who derided her as lazy, undisciplined or unready -- complained of."

He goes further in a second post, describing the story as "emblematic of much that's wrong about the way she's covered." Smith reports that while the opening anecdote of the story describes son Trig Palin at an event (and suggests he is being used as a prop), the organizer of the event says he wasn't there; Gross appears to have mistaken another child for Trig Palin.

Writes Smith:

Palin almost never talks to neutral media outlets, leaving her -- as critics accurately note -- subject to none of the questions, challenges and reality checks that the political press puts regularly to almost every other national political figure. She takes a lot of heat for this, deservedly.

But with the hunger for information about her, and the traffic she drives, the press sometimes compensates by printing such thinly sourced, badly reported nonsense about her that it's hard to imagine it making it into a serious magazine like Vanity Fair if it concerned any other figure.

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
Follow on Twitter »

58 Comments Have Your Say
Email Story Send to a Friend
Share This Tell Your Friends
Tweet This Tweet This
More Share It

Add a Comment

See all 58 Comments


by juliet464 September 22, 2010 6:32 PM EDT: I am so tired of hearing Palin cry about things she does not like. This women needs to go back to Alaska....we could only be so lucky!! No one really watches Fox News for News, they go to watch freaks and get scared that some of them might make it into politics.; Reply to this comment

by Bisk1 September 9, 2010 1:12 PM EDT

by jwilwade September 3, 2010 12:34 PM EDT
This shows how absurd the media really is and why no one can believe anything anymore from NBC,CBS,ABC,TIMES,NEWS WEEK etc,... there all liberal hit machines that protect the Demos and go after who ever is a threat to their GOD Obama. The reporters who said she went to far in calling the reporter limp is as absurd as the story itself. Reporters get to call her every vile name in the book but she can not call them LIMP? How stupid the liberal media looks now when 75 % of all the people that watch the news now watch it at FOX.

**********

Impotent, Limp and Gutless - now imagine when her kids ask her what these words mean and why she'll refer to an American by such terms ??? The original article may have been more correct that we'll ever know, just look at the HATE emanating from this hag, resorting to insults meant to demean, in response to an article that purports to show how ruthless she si to her perceived enemies. This is not a leader and for sure not someone i want my kids listening to, i'll let the many Dumb Repugs explain what her words mean to their kids. Dumb Dumb Repugs !!

Reply to this comment


by JV1970 September 9, 2010 8:28 PM EDT: Her kids have been called much worse! Bristol has been called every filthy name in the english language and ridiculed constantly for the the last two years by every late night comedian in the country! Bristol's baby is constantly being called a bastard by idiot's on these message board's. (If you think explaining the meaning of the words limp and impotent to her kids would be tough just imagine Bristol trying to explain to little Tripp the meaning of the word bastard and why people are calling him one! Being called limp and impotent are nothing compared to being called a bastard!) Then there's the lie that's been circulating for two years that says that Bristol is really the mother of her little brother Trig. I'm not going to comment on that here except to say that I believe it's a bald faced lie! That gets me to little Trig. That liitle boy has been called every name from idiot to retardo on these comment boards. You should try explaining those names to a child sometime! Being called limp and impotent pales in comparison!


by JV1970 September 10, 2010 10:39 AM EDT: Bisk1 This comment proves my point:

by Brokennews September 8, 2010 4:20 PM EDT
I don't really care for the Palins, but to focus your attack on an infant who had no say in who his parents are by referring to him as a bastard is a pretty scummy thing to do.
---
It didn't bother these two that they had a bastard.

Why do you object to correctly labeling him as such if they chose to make him so?

by Bisk1 September 9, 2010 12:16 PM EDT

Reply to this comment


by JV1970 September 9, 2010 8:34 PM EDT: by JV1970 September 9, 2010 8:28 PM EDT
Her kids have been called much worse! Bristol has been called every filthy name in the english language and ridiculed constantly for the the last two years by every late night comedian in the country! Bristol's baby is constantly being called a bastard by idiot's on these message board's. (If you think explaining the meaning of the words limp and impotent to her kids would be tough just imagine Bristol trying to explain to little Tripp the meaning of the word bastard and why people are calling him one! Being called limp and impotent are nothing compared to being called a bastard!) Then there's the lie that's been circulating for two years that says that Bristol is really the mother of her little brother Trig. I'm not going to comment on that here except to say that I believe it's a bald faced lie! That gets me to little Trig. That liitle boy has been called every name from idiot to retardo on these comment boards. You should try explaining those names to a child sometime! Being called limp and impotent pales in comparison!


by sodakhic September 9, 2010 12:15 PM EDT: Yeah Sarah and you could describe all east coast colleges and elites as impotent, limp and gutless. For a socalled hillbilly you use the english language well. Keep it up.; Reply to this comment

by Walkersun September 9, 2010 12:14 PM EDT

Shannyn Moore's beef with the author is because she didn't like how she was represented and the fact that one of the sources was named. She does not dispute the veracity of the article!

Other McCain aides have in the past described Palin as having a terrible temper, smearing off her makeup and ruining her hair before the Biden debate as well as being catatonic at times.

It's not like any of this is new.

One only has to read her potty mouth reaction to Gross to understand what lays under the thinly disguised veneer of her family values and christianity.

Palin is a foul-mouthed fraud.

Reply to this comment


by JV1970 September 9, 2010 8:41 PM EDT: If you think the words limp and impotent are potty mouth you are living too much of a sheltered life! You should get out in the world more often! I guarantee you there are many, many words that are much more potty mouth than those! Limp and impotent are clean and innocent compared to some that Palin could have said!


by magnumdr September 7, 2010 5:15 AM EDT: I think that this magazine hit the nail right on the head.; Reply to this comment

by AttyFAM September 6, 2010 11:52 AM EDT

Seems to me that Palin's response at least proves the allegation that she is foul-mouthed and has temper tantrums.

Reply to this comment


by JV1970 September 7, 2010 12:10 AM EDT: If you think the words impotent and limp are foul you need to get out in the world more often! You are leading too much of a sheltered life! I am a Christian and I don't use them but even I know that there are many, many words that are much nastier than those!


by lucifersshadow September 6, 2010 8:15 AM EDT: "Shame on you," she writes. "You're not a writer...you're a climber." She should talk . . . .; Reply to this comment

by deohgee September 5, 2010 8:54 AM EDT

I wonder how she would like it if they called her daughter an underage ho and her grandchild a bastard and her kid retardo?

Reply to this comment


by JV1970 September 6, 2010 3:28 AM EDT: I don't know what planet you've been living on for the last two years but her kids have been called every one of those names! Not by a reporter or anyone in the media but by idiots on these message boards and on twitter and facebook and in just about every chat room on the internet!Also Bristol has been the subject of every idiot late night comedian's jokes for the last two years, too! David Letterman, Jay Leno, and Bill Maher have been relentless!


by JV1970 September 9, 2010 12:15 PM EDT: FlangeSqueal8 First of all you can't prove that TRIG isn't Sarah's child! You are only repeating the lie that has been circulating for the last two years! And his name is TRIG not TROGG! And if you would check it out you would find that, even though he's tall and has blue eyes and doesn't show it, Todd Palin is half Eskimo! His mother is a full blooded Eskimo! Also IF you are capable of counting to nine you would know that there is no possible way that TRIG could be Bristol's child! TRIG was born in April of 2008 and Bristol's son Tripp was born just eight months later in December 2008. Tripp was a full term baby who weighed nearly eight pounds at birth. It takes nine full months to carry a baby to full term and Tripp was in no way premature! It is physically IMMPOSSIBLE for Bristol to have given birth to Trig in April and then give birth again just EIGHT months later to a full term nine months gestation baby. It can't be done! And after having said all of that I'm going to tell you something else. Whether or not Trig is Sarah and Todd's child is their business and NO ONE else's, not even yours! They say that he is their child and that's all that they need to do! We should just accept their word about it! If he's not their child it's their business and no one else's! Even the Palins have a right to keep some things private!

Second there is no one else on earth who's every move is watched, and every utterance is checked and criticized as Sarah Palin! NO ONE! Not even the President of the United States, Hillary Clinton, NO ONE! There are people who purposely follow Sarah wherever she goes just to catch her saying or doing something she shouldn't. They watch her house, they are in her hometown, they are everywhere! She can't even go to the supermarket without being followed! Do you really think Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi is followed that much? I DON'T! Also Nancy Pelosi has a temper that is absolutely explosive but no says anything about that because she's a liberal Democrat!

Third Many liberal Democrat politicians and radio and tv political talk show celebrities have said things that weren't true but they got by with it. Very little if anything was said about it. Why is that? If they can get by with it why can't Sarah Palin and other onservative Republicans? I think I can tell you why! You think the Constitution and our freedom of speech is for your liberals but not for us conservatives! You think that we shouldn't have the same rights that you do simply because we don't agree with you!

There is something else I'm going to tell you about your remark that Sarah should keep her mouth shut until a man wants it. YOU ARE A SEXIST PIG! You are living in the past! You should fast forward yourself to the twenty-first century! Women no longer have to be controlled by men! They don't have to stay at home and cook and clean and be pregnant most of the time if they don't want to! They also don't have to ask their husband or their man for everything that they want or before they do whatever they want to do! Most men today are fine with that and most of them are even proud of their wives and encourage them to have careers and be out in the world. Todd Palin is one of those. There are some, though, like you, that still think that a woman's place is in the home working and slaving for her husband and being at his beck and call! You might as well get used to it because things have changed! It's no longer a man's world!

by boatdocster September 4, 2010 11:16 AM EDT

"It just slays me because it's so absolutely clear what the state of yellow journalism is today that they would take these anonymous sources as fact."

Who is more yellow, impotent and limp? A journalist with anonymous sources, or a pseudo politician who screens their audience and only will take pre-scripted, pre-approved questions?

I'll take the journalist any day.

Reply to this comment