The Unpublished Sarah Palin Tell-All That's Leaked Everywhere
Frank Bailey is a former confidante to Sarah Palin. He started off painting her gubernatorial campaign offices as a volunteer in 2005 and left as a top aide in 2009. He was inspired by, loyal to, and probably in love with Palin, based on our reading. But now he hates her! All of this according to his 465-page, tell-all manuscript that's mysteriously leaked to reporters' inboxes everywhere.
Bailey's book, Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of our Tumultuous Years, still doesn't have a publisher, although he does have an agent in New York who's been shopping it around. Who leaked it, though? The Anchorage Daily News, which reported on the book a few days ago, got it from a familiar source:
Copies of the manuscript were forwarded around Alaska political circles on Friday. The Daily News received copies from multiple sources, the first from author Joe McGinniss, who is working on his own Palin book. McGinniss didn't respond to a message asking where he obtained the manuscript and the reason he circulated it.
You all remember Joe McGinniss, yes? He's the author who moved next door to the Palins last year to work on his book about Sarah Palin, due later this year. For now, though, he's apparently leaking a rival's book. This is all quite odd! We don't really "get" insider-Alaska power plays and stuff.
Bailey's book is "based on" the 60,000 e-mails he exchanged with Palin over the years. We at Gawker got a copy of the manuscript from an anonymous source and started reading over the weekend, but got stuck in the optimistic early chapters about life on the gubernatorial campaign trail in 2005. That was forever ago, and so much has changed! Just skip straight to the downfall, sheesh.
Anyway, here's a sample Palin email, from the introduction. It's a bit sleazy for Frank Bailey to cash in like this — assuming it ever gets published — but whatever:
ridiculous... paying for the damn McCain campaign's attorneys to vet me!!! Unflippinbelievable. The campaign was so disingenuous, who in the heck has to pay for themselves to be vetted when they didn't ask for it??? I didn't hire any attorney- they did! They ran up a bill and left me with it- just like they did with the damn clothes issue. Paying out of my family's pocket for the Flippin' privileged of jumping on the pirate ship headed up by Schmidt, Nicole, et al? I am so upside down in all this- paying off a ridiculous debt I owe for the privilege of campaigning with a bunch of rich, connected people who have no burden after the campaign ends- they left the burden (in more ways than one) to us. This aspect of it is unheard of- the campaign folks lied. They have $ left over in different campaign accounts, but we're stuck with their bill and a lot of embarrassment. This is an unbelievable chapter in a book.
Sarah Palin: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009
(Note: the McCain Campaign later revealed that this was not a vetting expense, but a legal bill associated with defending Sarah Palin against ethics charges in her dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan in a scandal that became known as Troopergate).
We can confirm that through 41 pages, "Unflippinbelievable" is the word Sarah Palin most frequently uses in private communications.
[Photo of Palin via AP. Screenshot of Bailet (inset) via KTUU]