Palin Family Circus News - Monday, June 6, 2011

This morning there was a package of sliced, smoked salmon on the tabloid racks. Underneath the salmon was Globe, featuring a story about the Palins on the cover -- divorce.


You may have heard or read of the Wikipedia edit war as Palin's fans attempt to re-write the history of Paul Revere's ride. Historical revisionism is very reminiscent of what went on in the Soviet Union.

The usually apolitical Computerworld has published "Sarah Palin fans try to rewrite history on Wikipedia." This tendency of Palin's fans to re-write history necessitates a thorough review of all their claims about her, because, if they can't refrain from historical revisionism in a matter that might have blown over with time, how can they be trusted to accurately portray her record as governor and mayor?


"Only 23 percent of voters surveyed say Palin is qualified to serve as president. Sixty-three percent say Palin is unqualified." -- Poll: Mitt Romney qualified, Sarah Palin not


How Are Critics Liking the Hot New Sarah Palin Documentary? Gawker's Jim Newell writes, in part: "The documentary about herself that Sarah Palin secretly commissioned, The Undefeated — a.k.a. Triumph of the Grift — will debut in Iowa at some point later this month. And some lucky film connoisseurs, mostly all for conservative publications, have already viewed advance copies! So does it give Errol Morris a run for his money, or is it undiluted shite? Critics are torn."


Bill Dedman of msnbc.com writes, concerning the 24,199 pages of e-mails about to be released by the state of Alaska:

... Soon after the emails are released, msnbc.com plans to scan them in and put them online in a public archive, restoring the electronic records to electronic form. This archive will be co-sponsored by Mother Jones magazine, which also requested the documents back in 2008, and with Pro Publica, the nonprofit investigative newsroom, just as msnbc.com did with a batch of Todd Palin emails last year. Those emails showed the vigorous role the "First Dude" played in the operation of state government. Here is that archive.

Not all the e-mails are being released. The state had said that it it is withholding thousands of pages because of privacy concerns or the executive or deliberative exemptions in the state public records law, as it withheld documents in the previous release of Todd Palin emails to msnbc.com. ...

Fox News seems to be tuned-in to the Sarah-Palin-is-a-wannabe-comedian meme, but can't seem to distinguish Palin from Tina Fey.


factcheck.org's "Palin's Twist on Paul Revere" isn't helping her.


This post's "painting" of Paul Revere's reaction to Sarah Palin's revisionist history was found here. It is derived from a portrait of Revere by John Singleton Copley, here.

Palin Palace Intrigue - UPDATED

The Atlantic Wire's Elspeth Reeve writes, in "Sarah Palin's Web Guru Has Some Opinions About Other Republicans:":

Rebecca Mansour is Sarah Palin's web guru, aggressive online defender, and maybe a little bit of a troll. She's somewhat elusive, and the subject of much fascination among people in the part of the Venn diagram where interests in Palin minutae, Twitter, and gossip overlap. The Atlantic Wire falls into that space, naturally, and that's why The Daily Caller's Jonathan Strong's collection of Mansour's private messages is so fascinating. She indicates her boss was planning to run for president last summer, and that she thinks Mitt Romney is a joke, a conservative blogger is a jerk, and that Bristol Palin is a little bit embarrassing. ...

The second link, above, takes you to another story by Reeve about Mansour; the third to the Daily Caller's story, which omits some of Mansour's tweets about Palin family dynamics.

Is this a story of betrayal? Does Mansour have any direct knowledge of the family dynamics?

This story reminds me of what the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza recently wrote about the fire in Palin's belly: 'We take Palin at her word that she has the requisite “fire in the belly” necessary to run. But does she have her mind wrapped around the mechanics of how (and if) she could turn intrigue over her and her family into actual votes?'

In any case, it's interesting that Reeve has used a Venn diagram to get a better understanding of someone's fans. Update: Reeve is considering people interested in Palin as a set of people. Like any set, that set may contain subsets. Reeve has identified three of those subsets: those interested in Palin minutiae, those interested in Twitter, and those interested in gossip. Reeve's "overlap" is the intersection -- in set theory terms -- of those three subsets.

Update: Mansour last tweeted on the 20th, after a tweet on the 16th. It appears as though her tweet rate has fallen dramatically.

Update: Politico's Andy Barr has written "Heat from tweets for Palin aide," which indicates that it may be some time before anyone knows whether Mansour is still a Palin aide.

Update: Politico's Ben Smith has written, "Don't talk to strangers, Palin edition," in which he tells how he was offered Mansour's tweets last fall by one "Toki de la Vega." Don't you think that he (or she) must be some sort of Spanish explorer -- conquistador? -- with a name like that?

Anyway, Smith also writes, "[W]e and most other outlets would also have printed them [the tweets] had we obtained them, as story does shed light on the inside of Palin's small circle." Did Reeve miss a subset?