Drama Queen Sarah Palin Complains About Invasion Of Her Privacy On First Episode Of Her Reality Show
The first episode of Sarah Palin's new show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," has been placed online and it starts with what is now a familiar lament about the intrusiveness of the press from the former Alaska Governor.Palin resigns as governor so she can parlay her new found fame into being a millionaire political-celebrity. Than complains when someone pays attention to her. If she didn't want neighbors she should have bought the house next door and had it demolished. Apparently she makes more money milking the story to play the whiny victim.
The specific grievance is directed at Joe McGinniss, the freelance reporter who over the course of the summer camped up in the house next to Palin's home in Alaska. And in terms a bit more candid than expressed at the time, Palin offers her displeasure.
"Our behavior has certainly changed this summer because of this new neighbor," she says at the show's onset. "I think it is an intrusion, an invasion of our privacy and I don't like it." Palin later adds, "It's just none of his flippin' business."
Even the soft-spoken first dude, Todd Palin, gets in on the act, saying that his summer fun had been "taken away from us because of a new neighbor next door who is writing a hit piece on my wife. I mean life is about being productive but these people want to seek and destroy."
Todd would go on to build a 14-foot fence between the properties to limit McGinniss' ability to peer in to her property -- an act privacy protection that Sarah sees as a symbolic foundation for solving the immigration debate. "I thought that was a good example, what we just did," she says. "Others can look at it and say oh this is what we need to do to secure our nation's border."
Putting aside the debate over McGinniss' ethics -- as well as the more particular disputes over whether his rental of the house next door was physically intrusive -- there is a certain irony to Palin's lament. She's complaining about her loss of privacy, after all, while being filmed for a reality TV series.
It's illustrative of Palin's larger relationship with the press. The outlets to which she grants access provide the most favorable coverage, whether it be her analyst gig on Fox News or her Alaska-themed show on TLC. Those that probe a bit deeper are brandished as unreasonable.
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