Todd Palin Says Joe McGinniss' Book Contains "Disgusting Lies"

The reports from Joe McGinniss’s upcoming book about Sarah Palin have such a ripped-from-the-National Enquirer quality that if she’d made some comment about refusing to dignify the allegations with a response, the news that she hooked up with a black dude and did cocaine would have blown over fairly quickly. However, the Palin’s aren’t known for their quiet dignity, and today Todd Palin started slinging mud right back at McGinniss.

In a statement to reporters today, Todd referenced the New York Times‘ scathing review of The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, saying:

“This is a man who has been relentlessly stalking my family to the point of moving in right next door to us to harass us and spy on us to satisfy his creepy obsession with my wife. His book is full of disgusting lies, innuendo, and smears. Even The New York Times called this book ‘dated, petty,’ and that it ‘chases caustic, unsubstantiated gossip.”

That still wasn’t folksy enough, so Todd also told Today:

This is a man who has been relentlessly stalking my family to the point of moving in right next door to us to harass us and spy on us. He traffics in innuendo and falsehoods. A few years ago he interviewed members of Sarah’s administration for a magazine article, and afterwards they said that he was the most disingenuous and intellectual dishonest writer they’d ever dealt with. He’s spent the last year interviewing marginal figures with an axe to grind in order to churn out a hit piece to satisfy his own creepy obsession with my wife. I’d ask that people consider these facts when evaluating his latest lies.

I’d ask the fathers and husbands of America to consider our privacy when one summer day I found this guy on the deck of the rental property, just 18 feet away next door to us, staring like a creep at my wife while she mowed the lawn in her shorts, unbeknownst to her that he was prying. As well as our teenage daughters while they tried to enjoy our traditional Alaskan summer days outdoors. Joe’s son told the media he advised his dad not to move from the East Coast to become our next door neighbor, but said his dad ‘was just waiting for Todd to be out of the picture.’ Sarah has never spoken to this intruder into our lives, our friends and family don’t speak to him, so we have no idea where he would come up with content for his book. He was on our doorstep one day trying to make conversation with our son until Track cut the conversation short after discerning Joe’s odd behavior, and I spoke to him one time when I saw him 18 feet away, just to find out who he was. He took that conversation and reported it to the media as me “threatening” him.

That actually sounds plausable, and as an unmarried young woman of America, I still think it sounds like a privacy violation. In addition to proving Palin’s point that the “lamestream” media is out to get her, the book may have another unfortunate effect: Making us feel a brief tinge of pity for Palin. As the Washington Post‘s Jonathan Capehart says, “Even polarizing public figures deserve to be skewered by well-researched and thoroughly reported facts.”

Todd Palin: McGinniss Book ‘Disgusting Lies’ [Politico]
Statement from Todd Palin regarding Joe McGinniss’ ‘The Rogue’ [MSNBC]
Going Rogue: Pity For Sarah Palin [Washington Post]

Earlier: Despite Being Awful, New Palin Book Will Only Help Her Career
Sarah Palin’s Alleged ‘Steamy Interracial Hookup’