Joe Mcginniss

There's a not-so-subtle agenda underpinning Joe McGinniss' "The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin," although it's never made explicit until late in the book. "The time has come to strike the tent," McGinniss begins the closing chapter. "[N]o matter how much my book sales might benefit from a Palin presidential campaign in 2012, I sincerely hope that the whole extravaganza, which has been unblushingly underwritten by a mainstream media willing to gamble the nation's future in exchange for the cheap thrill of watching a clown in high heels on a flying trapeze, is nearing the end of its run. " If you're a Palin supporter, this will only give you ammunition to dismiss "The Rogue" as one more piece of liberal propaganda, yet another "lamestream media" smear campaign.

The publisher of an unfavorable biography of Sarah Palin is standing by the work by Joe McGinniss in the face of a lawsuit threat by the former governor of Alaska and potential presidential candidate. In a statement released on Tuesday, Crown Publishers backed McGinniss and his recently published book, “The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin.” “We are confident that the reporting in “The Rogue,” is solid, reliable, and well-substantiated. We stand by our publication and our author," spokesman Stuart Applebaum said in an emailed statement.

Who's worse, Joe McGinniss or Janet Malcolm? The two journalists were famously at each other's throats after Malcolm wrote scathingly about McGinniss' book on the Jeffrey MacDonald murder trial of 1979. But they are also eerily similar in their penchant for overwriting, amateur psychoanalysis of their subjects, sneering condescension and questionable journalistic tactics. And now they've both come roaring back into the public eye. McGinniss' latest caper is renting the house next door to Sarah Palin in Wasilla, Alaska.

THE ROGUE Searching for the Real Sarah Palin Joe McGinniss Crown: 322 pps., $25

Joe McGinniss--author of the best seller "Fatal Vision," the story of Jeffrey MacDonald, a Green Beret and Long Beach doctor convicted of killing his pregnant wife and two young daughters--says his newest book, "Blind Faith," is the last one he will write about a murder. "I think my capacity for empathy is over," he explains. "There is nothing worse than a writer not feeling as sorry as he should for the people who are hurting." "Blind Faith" examines the case of Robert O.

During the late '70s, Joe McGinniss roamed the vast expanses of Alaska, compiling this vivid memoir. His account of America's last frontier ranges from poignant to scurrilously funny. He shares his unabashed rapture at the beauty of the virgin wilderness and his disgust at the squalor of Nome. At the time he was writing, Alaska was reeling from a sudden influx of oil money.

The answer might have come to him on that train to Hyannisport, Mass., when the senator dismissed him with a curt nod, and he had finally to admit failure in his long quest to secure an interview with the subject of his new Big Book. Worse, he must have had to concede to himself, though never to his publishers, he had failed to unearth a single new important fact about the senator. Yes, that was it, Joe McGinniss might have thought.

Wry, rumpled, best-selling Joe McGinniss suddenly is an author without allies. Worse, he is being condemned by peers and crucified by literarists with careers mightier than his. Their words for his new work are consentient poison: avaricious slop, plagiaristic, journalistic histrionics, unadulterated junk, salacious, mean-spirited and novelistic landfill. It was almost a surprise that McGinniss arrived here for interviews Wednesday. "Where should I be?" he asks. He tries a tease.

Got a few minutes to talk about the dregs of humanity? Author Joe McGinniss, who is developing a lurid specialty as a true crime writer--in "Blind Faith," he writes, as he did in "Fatal Vision," about a man accused of killing his wife--this time brings us a man who must have seen "Double Indemnity" too many times and, in his arrogance, decided he could play both the Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck roles.

WASHINGTON -- As Sarah Palin ponders whether to enter the 2012 GOP presidential wars, a skirmish over two competing chronicles of her time in Alaska has broken out. A former aide to Palin, Frank Bailey, is working on a manuscript in which, according to press reports, Palin is portrayed as thin-skinned and obsessed with her political critics. On Tuesday, Bailey accused author Joe McGinniss, who has been working on his own Palin book, of leaking Bailey's manuscript to the media. Posting on the anti-Palin blog Mudflats on Tuesday, Bailey, along with his co-authors, Ken Morris and Jeanne Devon, issued what they termed was a "cease-and-desist order" against McGinniss, which read, in part, that the three "believe [McGinniss']

There's a not-so-subtle agenda underpinning Joe McGinniss' "The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin," although it's never made explicit until late in the book. "The time has come to strike the tent," McGinniss begins the closing chapter. "[N]o matter how much my book sales might benefit from a Palin presidential campaign in 2012, I sincerely hope that the whole extravaganza, which has been unblushingly underwritten by a mainstream media willing to gamble the nation's future in exchange for the cheap thrill of watching a clown in high heels on a flying trapeze, is nearing the end of its run. " If you're a Palin supporter, this will only give you ammunition to dismiss "The Rogue" as one more piece of liberal propaganda, yet another "lamestream media" smear campaign.

WASHINGTON -- As Sarah Palin ponders whether to enter the 2012 GOP presidential wars, a skirmish over two competing chronicles of her time in Alaska has broken out. A former aide to Palin, Frank Bailey, is working on a manuscript in which, according to press reports, Palin is portrayed as thin-skinned and obsessed with her political critics. On Tuesday, Bailey accused author Joe McGinniss, who has been working on his own Palin book, of leaking Bailey's manuscript to the media. Posting on the anti-Palin blog Mudflats on Tuesday, Bailey, along with his co-authors, Ken Morris and Jeanne Devon, issued what they termed was a "cease-and-desist order" against McGinniss, which read, in part, that the three "believe [McGinniss']

Who's worse, Joe McGinniss or Janet Malcolm? The two journalists were famously at each other's throats after Malcolm wrote scathingly about McGinniss' book on the Jeffrey MacDonald murder trial of 1979. But they are also eerily similar in their penchant for overwriting, amateur psychoanalysis of their subjects, sneering condescension and questionable journalistic tactics. And now they've both come roaring back into the public eye. McGinniss' latest caper is renting the house next door to Sarah Palin in Wasilla, Alaska.

Live in Las Vegas long enough and you'll realize it's built on false hope. Certainly, the games of chance are a loser's folly, but so too are the master-planned excess of Summerlin, the cookie-cutter streets of Green Valley and Henderson. And in between the sprawl is the reason anyone knows about the place at all: the narrow casino canyon of Las Vegas Boulevard, which winds through glamour and glut until it stops at the sea of rugged humanity known as downtown.

Joe McGinniss' ninth nonfiction book tells two stories. One is the tale of how a soccer team from a town of 5,000 people in the remote and impoverished Abruzzo is "promoted" to play the 1996-97 season in Serie B, Italy's second-highest professional league, against teams from cities such as Turin, Venice and Genoa. A championship is beyond imagining, but the townspeople and players of Castel di Sangro seek a lesser miracle: la salvezza, a finish high enough to avoid relegation back to the minors.

As opening arguments began in the courtroom, arguments of another kind were taking place outside--among journalists who couldn't get in Tuesday to see the opening statements in the O.J. Simpson murder trial. News reporters were steamed over the front-row seats that Judge Lance A. Ito personally gave to book authors Dominick Dunne and Joe McGinniss.

THE ROGUE Searching for the Real Sarah Palin Joe McGinniss Crown: 322 pps., $25

The Los Angeles federal court battle between "Fatal Vision" author Joe McGinniss and convicted killer Jeffrey MacDonald has ended with dismissal of a $15-million breach-of-contract suit. The dismissal comes under terms of a settlement giving $325,000 to MacDonald, who filed a breach-of-contract suit alleging that McGinniss betrayed him by becoming his friend and then writing a book that concluded that he killed his pregnant wife and two daughters at Ft. Bragg, N.C., in 1970.

Simon & Schuster might have enjoyed a better seller had they reprinted a 70th anniversary edition of "Mein Kampf." Joe McGinniss would have suffered less emotional mutilation had he written a revisionist study of the free market integrity of Al Capone. But publisher and author decided on "The Last Brother," a psychic look at the beginning, multiple and midlife crises of Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). The book produced nothing but murderous, consentaneous and intransigent criticism of McGinniss.

The answer might have come to him on that train to Hyannisport, Mass., when the senator dismissed him with a curt nod, and he had finally to admit failure in his long quest to secure an interview with the subject of his new Big Book. Worse, he must have had to concede to himself, though never to his publishers, he had failed to unearth a single new important fact about the senator. Yes, that was it, Joe McGinniss might have thought.