Palin: "Little Shop of Horrors" According to McCain Aide

Vanity Fair released an August 2009 article by Mark Purdham which paints Sarah Palin in a negative light and questions her actions throughout her political career. In an era where many fear Palin could challenge Obama for the presidency in 2012, it's easy to understand the motive behind the article.

According to mypalpalin, a new anti-Palin conspiracy was uncovered March 9, 2009 (4 months after the election ended):

MEDIA EXEC ADMITS NEW ANTI-PALIN CONSPIRACY

A private source at a major New York daily newspaper has admitted on condition of anonymity that the paper is one of several working closely with an army of young bloggers and at least one TV network to ensure that the flow of negative publicity targeting Sarah Palin continues unabated for the next four years.

“The thinking is, We can’t afford to let her bounce back,” he said. “If she’s all shined up and ready to go in 2012, and if ordinary people have already started to rebel against the consequences of some of Barack’s more extreme economic and social policies, we’re in deep trouble. The decision has been made at the highest levels to keep Palin down, at any cost and by any means necessary.”

On June 30, 2009, we found out which New York newspaper the blogger was referring to when Michael Saul of the New York Daily News wrote a hit piece in advance of a Vanity Fair article that would revisit the story that "recounts how strained Palin's relationship was with the McCain advisers."

One would think Vanity Fair would name McCain campaign aide names instead of regurgitating the same old campaign story that quoted spineless anonymous sources. But the article goes on to explain that these campaign aides won't come forward because of bruised egos and their own unwillingness to accept their complicity in a situation which would expose their leader for what they fear would be seen as bad judgment:

None of McCain’s still-loyal soldiers will say negative things about Palin on the record. Even thinking such thoughts privately is painful for them, because there is ultimately no way to read McCain’s selection of Palin as reflecting anything other than an appalling egotism, heedlessness, and lack of judgment in a man whose courage, tenacity, and character they have extravagantly admired—and as reflecting, too, an unsettling willingness on their own part to aid and abet him.

If the "One longtime McCain friend and frequent companion on the trail (who) was heard to refer to Palin as 'Little Shop of Horrors,'" Saul refers to in his article is Mark Salter, than shouldn't Saul or Purdham name him or some of the other weaklings who contributed to this?

Bill Kristol provided the first name Vanity Fair should have included:

Meanwhile, on the day Purdum’s piece hit the web (today), a journalist who had expressed suspicions in the past that elements of the McCain campaign had undercut Palin suddenly got a friendly e-mail from top McCain-Palin campaign strategist Steve Schmidt. This journalist hadn’t heard from Schmidt in months. Perhaps Steve was nervous someone would finger him for the Purdum piece. One reason people might do so is this passage in Purdum’s article: “All the while, Palin was coping not only with the crazed life of any national candidate on the road but also with the young children traveling with her. Some top aides worried about her mental state: was it possible that she was experiencing postpartum depression? (Palin’s youngest son was less than six months old.)” In fact, one aide who raised this possibility in the course of trashing Palin’s mental state to others in the McCain-Palin campaign was Steve Schmidt.

(Update 04/05/09: Kristol vs Schmidt, Round 2 & McCain staffers push back on Vanity Fair's Palin profile)

There are no extra-marital affairs, misappropriation of funds or the sale of a senate seat here. There's just a woman who can take down corruption on both sides of the aisle simply by what she represents. That's a clear and pending danger to the power elites in both parties.

The Vanity Fair article is long and well written. But it is nothing more than an anti-Palin op ed piece delivered with a straight face and no verifiable sources.

Palin supporters need not be worried about losing faith in their leader. They need to be more worried about losing faith in their country, which has become a place where the media smears people for political purposes in place of delivering fair and balanced facts to an electorate that is too busy watching Michael Jackson coverage, a situation that doesn't leave much time for independent research or mundane things like Cap & Trade or healthcare reform.

Palin will take the hit and survive. Everyone should remember that something similar to this happened to Hillary Clinton. "As first lady, Hillary Clinton had a habit of raging at even senior White House aides, hurling personal insults designed to belittle and humiliate them in front of their colleagues, according to former White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers," in a reprint of a story quoting from an interview for a joint production of ABC's Nightline and PBS's Frontline.

Mark Purdham is the "Sleazy" "Slimy" "Scumbag" husband of Dee Dee Myers, according to former President Bill Clinton, as reported by Mayhill Fowler of The Huffington Post.

Those who don't understand the underlying game of the politics of personal destruction and the media's complicity in it may fall for the story. And when they do, they should walk around with signs on them that say "I'm a well duped idiot." This way historians will know who to blame when America goes the way of the Roman Empire.

In Ronald Reagan's America, we disagreed cheerfully and with respect. Consensus was forged in the arena of ideas. In Barack Obama's America, we smear each other and whoever gets the most people to fall for the bullshit wins. We're living in a different America now: a grungy dirty city sliding down the side of a hill.

Once again, the media fails to look more deeply into the real issues of why we are declining as a nation. They really never wanted to cover ACORN, even after indictments and convictions were issued against some its branches. The President's firing of inspector generals? Nothing to see here, please move on. Cap & Trade? Not important enough. Michael Jackson died you know. Now they're trying to kill Sarah Palin. Exciting TV!

Our culture deteriorates as a celebrity focused nation watches.

Today's America is a lot scarier than what the media may think of Sarah Palin. But, if the media's participation in the decline of America is understood by the American people in time, Palin will come out on top. The media and government elites on both sides know that she has to be stopped "at all costs." If they are unsuccessful in doing this, the sludge that underlies the corruptocracy that is at the heart of both political parties will be expunged, and with it many of those who seek Palin's demise.

Winning the presidency after brutal attacks and articles like Vanity Fair's will hold much more weight in a historical context than her temperament or experience ever will.