The Good, Bad and Ugly of Joe McGinniss

I've had a mixed history with author Joe McGinniss. His true-crime book Cruel Doubt was a laughably bad attempt to blame Dungeons & Dragons for a 1988 murder. His soccer book The Miracle of Castel di Sangro may be the best sports book I've ever read.

McGinniss has a biography of Sarah Palin coming out in the fall. I was looking forward to it, since his move-next-door stunt reminds me of funny things he did in Castel di Sangro. But I'm looking forward to it less after reading this paragraph from his Palin book, which he shared on his blog:

Sarah Palin practices politics as lap dance, and we're the suckers who pay the price. Members of our jaded national press corps eagerly stuff hundred dollar bills into her g-string, even as they wink at one another to show that they don't take her seriously.

That's a lot of sexist awfulness packed into 45 words.

Books · Politics · Sexism · 2011/06/10 · 4 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

It may be sexist, but Palin plays to it. What other candidate, male or female, winked suggestively at the camera during a speech?

#1 · Sterling (Chip) Camden · 2011/06/10

I don't think winks are always suggestive. President Bush (43) was a winker too.

#2 · Rogers Cadenhead · 2011/06/10

Not only does Palin play to it, the only sexism inherent in that is the underlying fact that if she wasn't generally considered to be a good looking woman, she would have no attention paid to her antics at all. So in that regard, the hundred-dollar-bill-in-a-g-string analogy is perfectly accurate.

#3 · Joe · 2011/06/21

I couldn't agree with Joe more. I would make that same analogy if I was clever enough to make it because this starts with Palin leveraging her looks for political gain. And since that starts with her I think it's fair commentary.

#4 · LoneStar JR · 2011/06/21