2761

Hmm… so Uruguay it is!

2762

Oh god.

2763

Oh god.

When a source told Joe McGinniss that he could rent the house next to Sarah Palin’s Wasilla, Alaska, home, the author was sold.

A room at the Best Western, not far away, would have been prohibitively expensive. The landlord of this house, meanwhile, offered it to McGinniss for $1,500 per month after a friend of the author recommended him as a solid alternative to the other people asking about the property.

“She was talking to this mutual friend of ours and said, ‘I’ve got to find someone we’re comfortable with,’ " McGinniss said Friday evening from the deck of the house – a deck that became famous after Palin posted a photo of it on Facebook this week. " ‘My biggest concern is the Palins’ privacy, especially the children.’ So this mutual friend said, ‘Well, you know, I think you’re in luck. Joe McGinniss is going to be coming back here, and you couldn’t find a better guy, just the right sort of person to move in and guarantee their privacy.’”

What happened next, said McGinniss, came as a total surprise. He had planned to keep the news off the Internet and tell the Palins himself that he’d be their neighbor as he wrapped up his biography of the former governor.

McGinniss had written a Portfolio piece about her leadership, and a critical Daily Beast piece on her book tour for her memoir, “Going Rogue,” but he hoped to keep things civil and introduce himself anew to Palin and her husband, Todd.

“'I wanted to say, ‘I’m writing this book, but I hope we can just get along as good neighbors, and after that, you’ll never hear from me again,’” said McGinniss. "That’s basically what I told Todd on Monday when he came over. He didn’t really want to hear that.

“He took off on how my Portfolio piece was a bunch of lies, and a smear, and all this and all that, and he said, ‘You going to be putting the microphones in now, and the surveillance cameras?’ I said, ‘Listen, you don’t know how lucky you are that I’m renting this place because that’s exactly what’s not going to happen as long as I’m here. I won’t see you, you don’t see me, this will be fine.’ He talked for a few more minutes beyond that, and he got, I’d say, increasingly hostile. And then he left, and I was still out here on this deck, where I’m sitting right now, when they took that picture for Facebook.”

2764

The best part is how “Palin’s Troll Army” (that phrase cracked me up when i saw it in the comments) proves his point about how rabid her fans are.

2765

No idea if it’s legal or not, but frankly having someone writing a book about you move in next door is both tacky and creepy. I’m no Palin supporter, but that’s just wrong. As people who are concerned with privacy and the rights of others we should all be absolutely appalled at McGinniss’s behavior. How could anyone with even a basic thread of decency think that moving next door to someone who you are writing a (probably hostile) book about is okay. I personally don’t give a damn whether he can hear their conversations or not. Just having him live next door is wrong.

2766

Wait until he starts building the mosque!

2767

What about blogs?

2768

Yeah, because…what? I mean, I wouldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t recommend it, but I don’t understand the route to deep offense here.

2769

Because it’s an invasion of privacy. Because it’s just plain wrong.

How would you feel if while Obama was still a candidate, a bunch of tea party types bought out all the houses around him, just for the purposes of living in them and harrassing him? Or what if you had a former boyfriend/girlfriend decide to move in next door just to harass you. People should have allowed a level of privacy in their own home, and having a creepy author writing a hostile book about them next door does not give them a level of privacy.

And yes Kerzain, if a liberal blogger (or for that matter a conservative blogger) moved next door and wrote about her regularly that would also be wrong. How would you feel if someone living next door to you started writing a hostile blog about you.

I’m deeply offended because I feel like if this had been a conservative asshat moving next door to a well regarded liberal politician we all would have been pissed off, but because it’s Sarah Palin, liberals are not standing up to defend her rights. That’s like the stupid conservatives with their “people accused of terrorism should be stripped of their citizenship.” No guys, we don’t just defend the rights of people we like. We don’t want to let the government to strip citizenship from people they don’t like, those rights are their to protect us all. Same deal here. The liberal community should stand up to McGinniss and tell him that his actions are immoral and unacceptable, instead of just being amused that Sarah Palin is annoyed.

2770

It’s just not fair that the reaper takes both Gary Coleman and Dennis Hopper but spares the Palins.

2771

I will be right there with you, ydejin, when he actually harasses her. Until we have a third-party verified account of him doing something like that, however, it’s just a tacky move by a guy who should know better.

2772

Like I said, I’m not sure it’s illegal or not, but it should be condemed regardless. As far as I can tell most of the left is viewing this as more “ha-ha Sarah Palin, glad this happened to her” than “this is wrong”.

Having someone writing a hostile book about you moving next door and keeping you under observation is in my view harrasment.

Let’s say there was some guy that used to really like you in almost a stalkerish fashion, but you weren’t interested in him. He didn’t do enough to warrant getting a restraining order or anything, but he was clearly very, puppy-dogish in love with you. Now, suppose he buys the house next to you and Matt specifically because you are living next door. Are you going to feel comfortable in your home with this guy living next door to you, staring out the windows trying to catch every glimpse of you he can. Isn’t the fact that he’s living next door keeping you and Matt under 24-hour observation basically a form of harrasment? Now let’s take it s step further and say that he writes everything he sees you do and puts it in a blog online. Still okay?

2773

Show me that he’s staring out his windows at Palin and I will start to care.

2774

If Rush Limbaugh moved in next door to Al Franken and then just…wrote a book and nothing else I’m not particularly sure what would be outrageous about that.

2775

If everyone who has said bad things about Palin can’t live next to her, she might have to actually move over a short distance to Russia to find a “safe” spot to live with her family, that or texas.

I confess to not having read his book, but i fail to see how writing a politically hostile book on a politician is on the same level as a stalker following you around. One of those two is potentially dangerous, the other is only dangerous to the extent that him writing “Saw Palin running around outside topless, chasing after chickens, disappointing” is dangerous.

2776

It’s not like Issa moved next door to Sestak before he started screaming “Scandal!!!”.

2777

Correct. Palin can fuck herself. If he does something actually illegal, she’ll be right there to press charges, and then she can continue to go fuck herself. If she had gone back to being a regular old citizen, after some time she would just be hailed on the streets by some fans and nobody would care. Instead she keeps herself in the spotlight by spewing outright lies and propaganda on the most “Fair and Balanced” news network in the country, and on her Facebook page.

She deserves no respect. None whatso-fucking-ever.

2778

The Hyannis Port Story, Vonnegut, Welcome to the Monkey House.

2779

The guy is a real creep, but Sarah is a public figure so live with it, you bitch.

2780

Any movie star, singer, public figure or political figure can have a creepy neighbor move in next door. Said neighbor can write a book about anything they want, including about YOU. Oh wait, lets change that, anyone in America can have this happen. Things don’t change just because you are Sarah Palin. Creepy neighbors abound everywhere, I have a few myself.

The fact you do two things here though annoy me though. One, Sarah deserves no special protection beyond any other normal person. Mostly because she is just that, a normal person. And two, the fact that someone doesn’t support Sarah getting her way shouldn’t place them into any sorting bucket, liberal, conservative, left, right or otherwise.

If you care about Sarah, that’s fine. But just because I may not does not make me a bad guy. She can put on her big girl pants and erect a fence if that’s what’s needed, just like I can. And if she has a neighbor she doesn’t like, well, she can join the club.