
 
 (Palin's home, AP Photo) 
 
 Joe McGinniss is a particular sort of journalist unfortunately not so in vogue anymore. His own obsessiveness and personal involvement invariably become part of the story. In his book about the 1968 presidential election, The Selling of the President, one of the most seminal campaign books ever written, he managed to inject himself as a constant shadow presence in the Nixon camp and wrote the model for fly-on-the-wall journalism as well as the basic manual for all future media consultants. His account in Fatal Vision of Jeffrey McDonald’s murder of his pregnant wife and two children is a classic in crime reporting and, as well, one of the stranger tales of an author’s tangled relationship with and dogged pursuit of his subject.McGinniss's hyper-involvement with his stories has bedeviled his subjects, publishers, and critics (Janet Malcolm’s famous study of journalism, The Journalist and the Murder—“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible…"—is based on McGinniss). It is now bedeviling Sarah Palin and the right wing.Before almost any other journalist (save for Andrew Sullivan), McGinniss got on to the weird and aberrant nature of the Palin phenomenon. He has been tracking it—and her—in his obsessive fashion nearly since John McCain announced her nomination.Now McGinniss has moved into the house next door to the Palins' in Alaska. He overlooks “my children’s play area” and “Piper’s bedroom," Palin complains in one of her Facebook posts about McGinniss. She goes on at considerable length and in stuck-pig fashion to try to mock and demonize and shake McGinniss. She has recruited other right-wing media personalities, including Glenn Beck , to help her in her campaign to run McGinniss out of town. Beck, indeed, has called McGinniss a stalker (which, in shoe-leather journalism fashion, he surely is).The campaign against McGinniss is a pretty stunning abuse of the kind of media access and power that Palin & Co. possess—it’s crowd incitement. Palin, one of the leading political figures in the country, is trying to impede a journalist’s obvious right to cover her by using well-honed and scarily effective right-wing tactics: declaring a jihad on an adversary and having masses of followers deliver threatening hate mail (or hate spam) and other invective of vast and malevolent proportions.McGinniss has sent friends and contacts an email saying that his standard email account had been overwhelmed and he can no longer use it.The Palin campaign is certainly tough for McGinniss and a display of the crude power and bullying that Palin seems to have no second thoughts about using to further her interests.But truly I wouldn’t feel too worried about Joe. Not a lot of chance he’s going to be scared off. He’s Br'er Rabbit. And Sarah’s gotten herself in the tar pit.More of Newser founder Michael Wolff's articles and commentary can be found at VanityFair.com , where he writes a regular column. He can be emailed at michael@newser.com. You can also follow him on Twitter: @MichaelWolffNYC ||||| Nearly 40 days in, our President finally addressed the American people’s growing concerns about the Gulf Coast oil spill. Listening to today’s press conference, you’d think the administration has been working with single-minded focus on the Gulf gusher since the start of the disaster. In reality, their focus has been anything but singular to help solve this monumental problem. 
 
 
 
 If the President really was fully focused on this issue from day one, why did it take nine whole days before the administration asked the Department of Defense for help in deploying equipment needed for the extreme depth spill site? 
 
 
 
 Why was the expert group assembled by Energy Commissioner Steven Chu only set up three weeks after the start of this disaster? 
 
 
 
 Why was Governor Jindal forced more than a month after the start of the disaster to go on national television to beg for materials needed to tackle the oil spill and for federal approval to build offshore sand barriers that are imperative to protect his state’s coastline? 
 
 
 
 Why was no mention of the spill made by our President for days on end while Americans waited to hear if he grasped the import of his leadership on this energy issue? 
 
 
 
 Why have several countries and competent organizations who offered help or expertise in dealing with the spill not even received a response back from the Unified Area Command to this day? 
 
 
 
 The President claimed that “this notion that somehow the federal government is somehow sitting on the sidelines and for the last three or four or five weeks we’ve just been letting BP make a whole bunch of decisions is simply not true.” But, in fact, that is how U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen described the Obama administration’s approach to this crisis: “We keep a close watch.” 
 
 
 
 Listening to the President, you get the impression he is continually surprised by the inability of various centralized government agencies to get more involved and help solve problems. His lack of executive experience might explain this because he is apparently unaware that it’s his job as a chief executive to make sure they do their jobs and help solve problems. 
 
 
 
 The fundamental problem at the core of this crisis is a lack of responsibility. (I risk the President taking my comments personally, but they’re not intended to be personal; my comments reflect what many others feel, and we just want to help him tackle this enormous spill problem.) There’s a culture of buck-passing at the heart of this administration that has caused the tragedy of a sunken oil rig to turn into a potential disaster. 
 
 
 
 The 1990 Oil Pollution Act was drafted in response to the Exxon-Valdez spill in my home state. It created new procedures for offshore cleanups, specifically putting the federal government in charge of such operations. The President should have used the authority granted by the OPA – immediately – to take control of the situation. That is a big part of what the OPA is for – to designate who is in charge so finger-pointing won’t disrupt efforts to just “plug the d#*! hole.” But instead of immediately engaging with this crisis, our President chose to spend precious time on political pet causes like haranguing the state of Arizona for doing what he himself was supposed to do – secure the nation’s border. He also spent much time fundraising and politicking for liberal candidates and causes while we waited for him to grasp the enormity of the Gulf spill. 
 
 
 
 Now that the American people are calling him out on his lack of engagement with this disaster, the buck-passing is in full swing – and, unbelievably, his administration is still looking to blame his predecessor. Amazingly, even those of us who support energy independence for America are the brunt of some buck-passing. 
 
 
 
 He suggested today that a “culture of corruption” at the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) was solely the previous administration’s responsibility and that the failure of the inspection system was a failure of that administration. That is false. The MMS has been his responsibility since January 20, 2009. 
 
 
 
 The MMS director who resigned today, Elizabeth Birnbaum, was appointed by his administration. And the most recent inspection of the oil rig took place a mere 10 days before the explosion – also very much on his watch, not President Bush’s. 
 
 
 
 The President is also now attempting to somehow distance himself from his administration’s recent decision to open a few areas of the continental shelf to oil and gas exploration. That’s unfortunate because America desperately needs our domestic oil and natural gas. We rely on it for our prosperity, security, and freedom. The President’s decision to open a few areas to offshore exploration was the right decision then; and unlike his quickly evolving position on energy development now, I continue to believe it’s the right decision today – because energy independence is in the long-term economic and security interests of the United States. 
 
 
 
 As I explained in an article in National Review last year, conventional sources like natural gas “can act as a clean ‘bridge fuel’ to a future when more renewable sources are available.” I do not, as the President mistakenly believes, think we can “drill, baby, drill” our way out of all of our troubles. As I have consistently stated, we need an “all of the above” approach to energy independence that combines conventional drilling with energy conservation and renewable-energy development. My record in Alaska clearly shows my commitment to this “all of the above” approach. Over 20 percent of Alaska’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources. As governor, I put forward a long-term plan to increase that figure to 50 percent by 2025, which is the most ambitious renewable energy target in the nation. I take great pride in helping to make Alaska, in the words of the New York Times, “a Frontier for Green Power,” even as we continue to embrace the need to “drill, baby, drill” at the same time. 
 
 
 
 Alaska can be that frontier for renewable energy only because our conventional oil and gas reserves provide us with “a bridge” to a greener energy future. In fact, Alaska has enough reserves of both oil and gas to help the United States cross that bridge – if only we are allowed to drill! 
 
 
 
 Please, Mr. President, hear me on this, if nothing else: if it’s your administration’s decision to suspend the leases of new oil field developments off the coast of Alaska in response to the Gulf’s deepwater spill, and you still remain committed to locking up ANWR and other oil-rich lands, please know you are making a mistake. Unless we continue to drill here and drill now, we risk digging ourselves deeper into the hole created by our continued dependence on foreign energy – which often comes from regimes that care nothing for our prosperity or security, and even less for global environmental safety. 
 
 
 
 We need affordable, reliable, secure, environmentally-sound, and domestically-produced energy, but this administration continues to lock up federal land filled with huge energy reserves. If there is to be a moratorium on offshore development, then it’s time we stop ignoring our safest options for domestic development – places like ANWR and NPR-A in my home state of Alaska. 
 
 
 
 And it’s time for the administration to stop passing the buck and get control of the disaster in the Gulf. There’s a reason why Harry Truman had that famous sign on his desk. The “buck stops” with the occupant of the Oval Office. When the American people elected President Obama they gave him responsibility to handle this disaster. He promised to “heal the earth, and watch the waters recede...” or something far-fetched like that. It was unbelievable then, it’s impossible now, but what I believe he meant was that he promised to be held accountable. With all due respect, Mr. President, you have a huge job in front of you. We hope you’re learning. Please learn that we must have domestic energy development, you must stop looking backward and blaming Bush, and we must all work together to “plug the d#*! hole.” 
 
 
 
 - Sarah Palin 
 
 ||||| After Sarah Palin suggested that there is a connection between Obama's response to oil spill and BP's financial contributions to him on Fox News Sunday, Robert Gibbs shot down her accusations on Face the Nation. 
 
 PALIN: Well, I think that there is, perhaps, a hesitancy, to -- I don't really know how to put this, Chris, except to say that the oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign and are supportive of him now, I don't know why the question isn't asked by the mainstream media and by others if there's any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration -- if there's any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico. Now if this was President Bush or if this were a Republican in office who hadn't received as much support even as President Obama has from BP and other oil companies, you know the mainstream media would be all over his case in terms of asking questions, why the administration didn't get in there -- didn't get in there and make sure that the regulatory agencies were doing what they were doing with the oversight to make sure that things like this don't happen. 
 
 Gibbs: Palin Should Get More Informed About Drilling: 
 
 "Sarah Palin was involved in that election, but I don't think, apparently, was paying a whole lot of attention," Gibbs said. "I'm almost sure that the oil companies don't consider the Obama administration a huge ally - we proposed a windfall profits tax when they jacked their oil prices up to charge for gasoline." "My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what's going on in and around oil drilling in this country," he added. 
 
 As CBS noted, the back and forth between Palin and Gibbs continued after he was on the air. They also did a bit of fact checking on campaign donations on all sides from the oil companies including Palin. 
 
 According to Open Secrets.org, BP's campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle were $214,915 to Democrats, and $315,909 to Republicans (about 40/60), split almost evenly between individual contributions and PACs. According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, during Palin's 2006 run for Governor in Alaska (where the large majority of donations came from individuals), BP America made the fifth-largest donation by a company to her campaign, contributing $4,650, with BP Alaska giving an additional $250. 
 
 As Media Matters pointed out after the right wing started calling this Obama's Katrina, the administration did respond to the spill immediately, so that part of her argument falls flat as well. The response has been inadequate and they should not have trusted BP's early estimates on how much oil was leaking, but you can't say they weren't out there from day one. Their bigger problem was not cleaning up the MMS and catering to the "drill baby drill" crowd like Palin in order to get some bipartisan support for their energy legislation. 
 
 Chris Wallace also allowed Palin to do some revisionist history when she claimed that she knows "what it takes to hold these oil companies accountable". Uh...not so much. 
 
 Palin’s Exxon Valdez account draws guffaws: 
 
 Sarah Palin’s new memoir, “Going Rogue,” already has been strongly criticized by John McCain’s aides for her account as a vice presidential candidate on the ticket with him in their unsuccessful 2008 race for the White House. Now, add Alaskan experts who were involved in the case over the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster saying her account over her role in the litigation is distorted for a number of reasons. In the book, Palin claims to have helped the fishermen, Alaska Natives and other individuals suing Exxon over spill damages prevail in their legal case. “It took years for Alaska to achieve victory. As governor, I directed our attorney general to write an amicus brief in the case, and, thanks to Alaska’s able attorneys arguing in front of the highest court in the land, in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the people,” she writes in her book. “Finally, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.” But Palin’s claims of victory for the plaintiffs and of playing a role in achieving that victory are highly distorted, said the chief attorney for the approximately 32,000 plaintiffs that sued Exxon over damages from the worst oil-tanker spill in U.S. waters. “That is the most cockamamie bullshit,” said Dave Oesting of Anchorage, lead plaintiff attorney in the private litigants’ civil case against Exxon and its successor, Exxon Mobil Corp. “She didn’t have a damn thing to do with it, and she didn’t know what it was about.” Read on... 
 
 And as I already noted, the Bush administration DOJ shut down a criminal investigation of BP, so there was no accountability. 
 
 Scott West: The U.S. Government Has Taught BP That it Can Do Whatever it Wants: 
 
 SCOTT WEST: But by August of '07, something had shifted dramatically, and we were told by the US attorney's office in Alaska that the case would settle out for corporate misdemeanor. And at the meeting that I attended there in late August, the question was asked, if we had to go to trial today, what could we prove? And I had to admit that a trial at that moment, the most we could prove was a corporate misdemeanor. And then I said, "But we’re not done with our investigation. We’ve only just begun. We need another couple of years to really vet this out." And they said, well, can I guarantee that I would be able to convict individuals. And I said, "Of course not. You can’t guarantee anything like that in the criminal investigative arena." And so, with that, they said, "Well, then we’re done." And I was in shock. It’s unheard of for a special agent in charge to be denied the opportunity to complete an investigation that was so far from nearing its end. And then— AMY GOODMAN: So you have the EPA considering penalties of upwards of, what, 800—or $672 million, possibly felony charges against BP executives, and they end up settling for $20 million? SCOTT WEST: Yes, they ended up settling for $20 million. And I was told there was a couple of reasons for that $20 million figure. One, we have to go back to the Olympic Pipe Line case. The Olympic pipeline ruptured in Bellingham, Washington in 1999, and the resulting spill of gasoline into a stream caught fire. Three individuals were burned to death, and a stream was destroyed. That case was investigated by EPA out of the Seattle office. In '99 and 2000, it was considered a very significant criminal case in the US attorney's office in Seattle, which was at that time under the Clinton administration. When the Bush administration took over at the Department of Justice, and the US attorney came in, it was—became a bottom-of-the-barrel case and was ultimately settled out for a very low amount of money. And I have been talking with one of the investigators on that case, and he said the amount of money that was determined as the fine in that matched what the insurance companies were willing to pay. So Olympic Pipe Line essentially did not have to actually pay the fine, but it was covered by their insurance company. Now, that Olympic Pipe Line settlement became the benchmark, within the Bush Department of Justice, for environmental crime. 
 
 Yeah, that's some accountability Sarah. There are plenty of more than valid reasons to be criticizing what's gone on with this oil spill and the response. Sarah Palin doesn't have an ounce of credibility to be the one making any of them, but that won't stop Fox News from bringing her on as though she does. 
 
 h/t aview999 for the Reuters link.
– Sarah Palin took time out from her war with new neighbor Joe McGinniss—now safely behind a mile-high fence—to launch a Facebook attack on President Obama, who she says passed the buck in his press conference on the Gulf oil spill and hasn't gotten federal agencies involved fast enough. "His lack of executive experience might explain this because he is apparently unaware that it’s his job as a chief executive to make sure they do their jobs and help solve problems." Could be read as a cute rejoinder to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggesting sweetly on Sunday that Palin, who had charged that Obama was in bed with BP because of campaign contributions, apparently "wasn't paying a whole lot of attention" during the election, and might want to get "slightly more informed as to what's going on in and around drilling in this country." Palin goes on to slam Obama's decision to suspend drilling off the coast of Alaska, and says it shows how much the president has to learn. "Please learn that we must have domestic energy development, you must stop looking backward and blaming Bush, and we must all work together to 'plug the d#*! hole.' ”