World News Korner

Andrew Sullivan on the passing of Joe McGinniss.

Courtesy of The Dish:

Of course, we bonded over the former half-term governor. He reached out to me when I was wildly exposed among journalists for refusing to believe her stories at face value. And what we bonded over was not a mutual revulsion at her politics. What we bonded over was the abject failure of the American press to say what had to be said about this preposterous, delusional maniac plucked from deserved obscurity by John McCain to be a heartbeat away from a potential presidency.

Her candidacy was a total farce; a disgrace; an outrage to American democracy; an appalling act of cynicism. Joe saw the creation of this media figure as a continuation of the Ailes recipe for optic politics, and he was appalled as so many mainstream outlets nonetheless insisted on taking this joke seriously.

So he went to do what others wouldn’t: to find the real truth about Palin, and he came closer than almost anyone.

I don’t see his last book as some kind of aberration, though it was obviously not in the same league as The Selling Of The President or Fatal Vision. I saw them all as a continuing crusade for a journalism that takes a stand, that welcomes obloquy if that’s what it takes to get to the truth, and that cares about our democracy. He would never have aimed for the “view from nowhere” or the facile mantra that one leading Washington journalist gave me when asked to explain why they hadn’t sought any proof for the fantastic Trig story that Palin spun: “Why ask questions when you know you won’t get an answer?” For Joe that was pathetic. As indeed it was.

There were a number of things that surprised me about Joe McGinniss.

His incredible love of Alaska, his love of strong drink, his tenacity, and his ability to befriend all manner of different people.

He was good friends, and I mean really good friends, with people from all walks of life.

At a party I attended in his rented house on Lake Lucille I discussed politics with an oil company spokesman, a mountain guide, an out of town journalist, and a few fellow Alaskans who had met and befriended Joe when he wrote "Going to Extremes."

Yet the friendships that he shared with Roger Ailes and Andrew Sullivan were perhaps the two which really demonstrated his capacity to welcome into his life people of quite extreme differences.

Ailes of course did not like Sarah Palin at all, something which I learned well before the public at large (Though Joe swore me to secrecy.), and only used her to attract viewers and to rake in advertising dollars.

Sullivan, as all of you well know, was the last real journalist standing on the hunt for the truth about Trig's birth.

Joe once told me that he had been hesitant about even approaching that subject, since he knew it would open the book to ridicule, but that he had been very impressed with the reporting by Andrew and myself, and came to realize that he could not write a book about Palin without addressing it.

He would never openly admit that he knew that she lied about the circumstances of the birth, but in conversations and e-mails it was pretty clear that he did not buy her story one little bit.

Sullivan also shared this e-mail that McGinniss sent him:

My shrink asked me this afternoon if I thought my book was a factor in Palin’s decision not to run. I said, “It might have been. It certainly didn’t tip her toward running. She may well have seen what one lone reporter turned up in four months and realized what teams from MSM outlets might learn in twelve, as they would have done over the next year, if she’d run.”

She said, “In that case, the people of the United States will be eternally in your debt.”

In that I am in total agreement.

Thank you Joe we owe you so very much.

P.S. For those who want to go on a trip down memory lane, here is a reminder of the e-mail exchange between Joe and I that the Right Wing tried to use to sabotage sales of "The Rogue."

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