The long-awaited Sarah Palin tell-all by reporter Joe McGinniss will shortly hit the shelves, just in time to roughly coincide with her announcement on whether or not she will run for president. After the media gets through running the salacious material that alleges that the former Alaska governor snorted cocaine, smoked marijuana, had an affair with her husband’s business partner, and had a pre-marital one-night stand with MIami Heat basketball standout Glen Rice (when he was playing at the University of Michigan), she might exponentially ramp up her disdainful criticisms of the mainstream media but decline to run.
The Daily Mail and The Atlantic Wire posted rundowns of some of the material to be found in McGinniss’ upcoming book, The Rogue: The Search for the Real Sarah Palin, which is due to be released on September 20. Among the more sensational revelations is her alleged cocaine use. According to The Rogue, before she became governor of Alaska, she was seen snorting cocaine off of an overturned 55-gallon oil drum.
But that wasn’t the only illicit activity she has been involved in, according to the new tell-all. The former governor of Alaska, who now is seen as a family values stalwart, also allegedly once smoked pot with a college professor when she was an undergrad.
According to the National Enquirer, which claims to have gotten confirmation from a publishing source, McGinniss writes that the 1987 Glen Rice rendezvous was a result of a fetish for black men that Palin developed after college. McGinniss also claims in the book that he got confirmation of the one-night stand, a hook-up that occurred while Rice was at a basketball tournament in Alaska and Palin was a sports reporter for television station KTUU, from Rice himself. Palin would be married nine months later when she would elope with boyfriend Todd Palin (who was also a boyfriend when she allegedly pulled the one-night stand with Rice).
The Enquirer also boasted that McGinnis confirmed their 2008 exclusive story of Palin’s alleged affair with Brad Hanson, the First Dude Todd Palin’s snowmobile dealership partner. The Rogue details how the affair lasted for six months and was the reason behind the dealership being dissolved.
The author, McGinniss, is a famed writer noted most for his work in the true crime genre. He has had several best-sellers since his first book, The Selling of the President, landed on the New York Times bestseller list in 1968. Books like Fatal Vision and Blind Faith have been made into movies.
He and Palin have had a confrontational past, the governor taking exception to McGinniss’ reporting when he refudiated her claims of securing the construction of the natural gas pipeline in Alaska. In order to get local color and research the book, he rented the house next to hers in Wasilla. Palin, with full knowledge of the impending book, took to Facebook and even her reality show to deride McGinniss’ delving into her past as “none of his flippin’ business.”
It is as yet unclear if the release of the tell-all will have an effect on Palin’s possible presidential run. She told CNN in mid-August that she would announce her decision by the end of September.
It is also unclear if the timing of the release of The Rogue was timed to coincide with Sarah Palin’s announcement.