Okay, Todd Purdum and Vanity Fair, this is how it’s done. Let us now thank Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe for bringing to light the Steve Schmidt/Sarah Palin correspondence of October 15, 2008. It includes one of the most beautiful emails ever written by a busy professional to a lying, narcissistic idiot. The email is also a chance to see a Republican political operative going into reverse mode. Instead of scrambling facts, he’s spelling them out; hey, he’s good at that too.
Background: Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd, belonged for 7 years to the Alaska Independence Party, which wants Alaska to secede from the United States. During the campaign, Palin complained to Steve Schmidt and others in the top command that not enough was being done to push back against criticism of Todd for his secessionist ties. The back-and-forth over this matter was all by email.
Schmidt told her no, they weren’t going to touch the AIP issue. Palin harangued him again, this time claiming that the AIP’s platform doesn’t mention pulling out of the U.S. Schmidt lost it and wrote the following:
Secession. It is their entire reason for existence. A cursory examination of the website shows that the party exists for the purpose of seceding from the union. That is the stated goal on the front page of the web site. Our records indicate that todd was a member for seven years. If this is incorrect then we need to understand the discrepancy. The statement you are suggesting be released would be innaccurate. The innaccuracy would bring greater media attention to this matter and be a distraction. According to your staff there have been no media inquiries into this and you received no questions about it during your interviews. If you are asked about it you should smile and say many alaskans who love their country join the party because it speeks to a tradition of political independence. Todd loves his countryWe will not put out a statement and inflame this and create a situation where john has to adress this
Isn’t that great? It moves me.
Palin had also claimed that Todd registered with the AIP by accident, that Alaska voter registration forms list the party only as “Alaska Independent” and Todd had meant to register as an independent. But no. Alaska forms list the party by its full name.
Lying to her own side. Lying about points of fact available to anyone who might want to look. In-fucking-unbelievable. But Andrew Sullivan has already covered this ground.
So all can one say is that Steve Schmidt lived the dream. He got to write Sarah Palin an email spelling out how full of shit she is.
update, Yeah, another thing. “I’m afraid he finds our country so flawed he pals around with terrorists.” And meanwhile she’s married to a guy who finds our country so flawed he wants his state to secede.
And now she's resigned from the governorship, because people like you keep giving her a hard time!
Have you watched the resignation video?
Yes, but way behind everyone else. I'd been primed for a meltdown and felt a bit letdown.
Still — no more of Palin ever having a shot at natl office. That has to be good.