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Sarah Palin accused of drug use and cheating

A new biography makes a series of lurid claims about the politician -- but will they stick?

A controversial biography of Sarah Palin claims that she snorted cocaine off a 55-gallon oil drum, and cheated on her husband with his business partner and a basketball player.

The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin by Joe McGinnis is scheduled for publication in the US next week.

It alleges that the former Republican vice-presidential candidate was seen snorting cocaine off the top of a 55-gallon drum while snowmobiling with friends, and that she smoked marijuana with a professor while studying at Mat-Su College in Alaska.

The book also resurrects allegations that she had a six-month long affair with her husband's business partner, Brad Hanson, in 1996. Both Palin and Hanson have strenuously denied this in the past.

McGinnis angered Palin by moving in next door to her in Wasilla, Alaska, while he was researching the book. Palin's camp has not yet given an official statement, but her husband Todd Palin said:

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.

Even ahead of the book's release, the handling of the allegations has caused controversy in the US. McGinnis made a deal with Garry Trudeau, author of the popular Doonesbury cartoon, to include extracts in the comic strip.

Some papers have decided not to run a strip containing the allegation that Palin once spent the night with basketball star Glyn Rice, saying that it is currently unsubstantiated. Another strip which many declined to run claims "Palin isn't comfortable in the presence of dark skinned people".

McGinnis's claims are certainly headline-grabbing, but it is difficult to judge their veracity. A New York Times blog points out that "many episodes cited in the book relied on unnamed sources or second- or third-hand accounts". Some US commentators have suggested that Palin -- a skilled media operator -- will turn this around and garner sympathy from her supporters. With the questionable credibility of the claims -- and the nasty, personal tone that book reviewers have noted -- this could be an effective strategy. There is little doubt the book will be a best-seller, but it remains to be seen whether the allegations will stick.

11 comments

Just a guy's picture

I guess Sarah couldn't hold out and gave into her lust for chocolate wiener. Little did she know that night of jungle fever would catch up with her. Some of her conservative admirers must be enraged at the thought of a basketball playing negro having his way with their Republican dumpling.

Just a guy's picture

I guess Sarah couldn't hold out and gave into her lust for chocolate wiener. Little did she know that night of jungle fever would catch up with her. Some of her conservative admirers must be enraged at the thought of a basketball playing negro having his way with their Republican dumpling.

dana jones's picture

all made up
http://PalinsDirtyLittleSecret.blogspot.com/

swatantra's picture

I wish they'd leave the poor woman alone. Tis could damage her chances of Nomination. Similar alledged allegations have been made against some of our own prominent politicians. But do the student japes of their interfere with what they are doing now?
We could do with less scurrillilous
reporting and journalism like this.
Lets stick to the issues that these people have to grapple with. They really don't need the added stress that this type of gutter journalism brings with it.
Palin is the only credititable Republican to lose against Obamaand we want it to stay that way.

Marcus's picture

The timing of this 'story' is the most interesting facet.

John Cheese's picture

Funny how the lefty Libs don't care about slander against "this" woman like they do about the 30 yr old free birth control activist..

Briar's picture

That's modern politics - character assassination in place of debate about policies. The media, of course, loves it.

jimbo's picture

If these accusations are true it would explain why she came out of nowhere to be a candidate for VP.maybe she gave a bit more to the Republicans than money.

timmy2's picture

Presumably Palin takes a hard-line approach to punishing those who use drugs, so it is of public interest if she herself "snorting cocaine off the top of a 55-gallon drum while snowmobiling" (LOL).

malcolm kyle's picture

* A rather large majority of people (including hockey moms with guns & lovers) will always feel the need to use drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, opium, nicotine, amphetamines, alcohol, sugar, or caffeine.

* Just as it was impossible to prevent alcohol from being produced and used in the U.S. in the 1920s, so too, it is equally impossible to prevent any of the aforementioned drugs from being produced and widely used by all those average hockey moms who desire to do so.

* Due to Prohibition (historically proven to be an utter failure at every level), the availability of most of these mood-altering drugs has become so universal and unfettered, that in any city of the civilized world, any one of us would be able to procure practically any drug we wish within an hour.

* The massive majority of people who use drugs do so recreationally - getting high at the weekend with their extramarital lovers then up in their helicopters hunting animals the rest of the week.

* A small minority of people will always experience drug use as problematic.

* Throughout history, the prohibition of any mind-altering substance has always exploded usage rates, overcrowded jails, fueled organized crime, created rampant corruption of law-enforcement - even whole governments, while inducing an incalculable amount of suffering and death.

* The involvement of the CIA in running Heroin from Vietnam, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan and Cocaine from Central America has been well documented by the 1989 Kerry Committee report, academic researchers Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott, and the late journalist Gary Webb.

* It's not even possible to keep drugs out of prisons or out of reach of hypocrite politicians but prohibitionists wish to waste hundreds of billions of our money in an utterly futile attempt to keep them off our streets.

* Prohibition kills more people and ruins more lives than the prohibited drugs have ever done.

* The United States jails a larger percentage of it's own citizens than any other country in the world, including those run by the worst totalitarian regimes.

* The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it.
- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American editor, essayist and philologist.

* In The Land Formally Known As Free, all citizens have been stripped of their 4th amendment rights and are now totally subordinate to a corporatized, despotic government with a heavily armed and corrupt, militarized police force whose often deadly intrusions into their homes and lives are condoned by an equally corrupt, spineless and reprobate judiciary.

* The United States re-legalized certain drug use in 1933. The drug was alcohol, and the 21st amendment re-legalized its production, distribution and sale. Both alcohol consumption and violent crime dropped immediately as a result, and, very soon after, the American economy climbed out of that same prohibition engendered abyss into which it had previously been pushed.

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they’ve tried everything else.”
- Winston Churchill

Hugh Markey's picture

Jeeze! Why is the woman always left holding the baby?
Look at what the Tories, Kenny Soft Touch Clarke and Angus Maude's little boy to be specific, did to Cameron's Granny. All over poll-dancin', for Pete's sake!
A sorry tale, Will never forget those red eyes! Shame. And her a defenceless woman!

Wimp!

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