In an interview with Newsweek’s Lloyd Grove, Joe McGinniss dismissed claims that his sexy new Sarah Palin biography, The Rogue, is nothing but (as the Times put it) “caustic gossip”:
McGinniss defends his methods — which include devoting many pages to speculation that baby Trig, who suffers from Down syndrome, isn’t really Sarah’s — by noting that most of his sources wouldn’t go on the record because they were worried the Palins would exact revenge. “I would say that 90 percent of what I learned is not in the book because I couldn’t check it out,” he says. “I wrote only the things I was able to satisfy myself about as to their authenticity, as to their accuracy, as to their truthfulness.”
Unfortunately, McGinniss did not offer any hints about the nature of the tales left on the cutting room floor, though the book’s somewhat harsh reception does seem to have made him think twice about not including them:
Now we’re kind of curious! Cocaine use and Glen Rice flings and creepily bad hostessing are fun and all, but what’s this really sinister — if unsubstantiated! — stuff? Best to get it out there, lest we all start feeling sorry for Sarah Palin.
Sarah’s Nosy Neighbor [Newsweek/Daily Beast]
