Sarah Palin Underweight, Anxious, Needed "Emergency Help" For Thinning Hair: New York Times

Update: Sarah Palin's hairdresser speaks! 9 days after the Times pondered the possible reasons for Sarah Palin's sudden withdrawal from the Alaskan governorship, at least one thing has become clear: it wasn't really a hair emergency. "It wasn't like I did an intervention,'' Jessica Steele, Palin's long time friend and hairdresser, told the Boston Globe in a phone interview from her Wasilla beauty parlor, the Beehive. "I think the combination of traveling and just being down there in the lower 48... We needed to get her back to shiny.''

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The New York Times has a lengthy story on Sarah Palin in Monday's edition, examining the personal and political pressures that may have driven her to resign her governorship.

The article, like many others before it, describes Palin's political operation as largely dysfunctional, to the point that prominent Republican adviser Fred Malek felt the need to personally urge her to have someone "set up a mechanism so you can return calls."

"You are getting a bad rap," he recalled saying. "Important people are trying to talk to you. And she said, 'What number are they calling?' She did not know what had been happening."

The piece describes Palin as obsessed with her critics, and under severe strain from souring relationships with Alaska legislators and encounters with the national media and paparazzi. Perhaps the strangest details of the story come from accounts from Palin's friends about her physical deterioration:

Friends worried that she appeared anxious and underweight. Her hair had thinned to the point where she needed emergency help from her hairdresser and close friend, Jessica Steele.

Read the full story here.

Comments

[QuietLightTraveler]

OK, now that Palin is out as Governor, thank God,, who is this person who is taking over the job.
The people of Alaska obviously do not have the good judgment to elect a qualified Governor.
Even when all this stuff that went on with Palin, she still had a substantial, albeit declining, approval rating in the state. So what is next ? I suggest Congress form some type of oversight committee to see what goes on there. The problem is that it is probably unconstitutional. The State of Alaska is no trivial piece of real estate. The natural and environmental resources there are literally treasures. Do we want all these hillbilly citizens and antienvironmental republicans ruining such a treasure.

[poochytown]

SP stands revealed as someone who simply could never stand the pressure of being president; yet she is still the biggest GOP star. A lot of conservatives like her because they think she is like them. That doesn't say much for anyone involved.

[forty8r]

What has she accomplished on the job as governor in Alaska or anything else? Being a nobody to a right wing media political sensation not even a year ago is her only real claim to fame.

[XCITIZEN]

Extreme stress: weight loss, thinning hair. I feel sorry for her in only one regard: she's absolutely not cut out for all of it. She can't handle it, it's too much, but she won't stop.

[instagladiator]

I agree. She got a "big dose" of "POWER GRABBING" when McTwit picked her as VP, was thrust into the limelight and it appears she can't let THAT go. POWER, FAME, POWER, FAME.

[Suesea]

And she could have been our Vice President? The thought of that makes me physically ill.

[biglover]

check this story out on rawstory. Alaska repubs are fuming at Palin. Look at the mess she is leaving

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/13/palin-under-siege/

[MacTheBlogger]

Politics aside, we crush people with celebrity. There is a long list of people whose lives were cut short at least partially due to how we treat our famous. Our culture has some serious problems with its priorities.

I, for one, get no pleasure watching another human being suffer, regardless of their politics.

[unity08]

I agree!

I know she brought a lot of this on herself, but its time to stop indulging this. As much as I detest her politics and her mode of operation, I do have some sympathy, or perhaps empathy (as a mother trying to juggle family/work) Time for the media to leave her family alone and for the nation get over this past election.
Time to give her a chance to heal physically and emotionally. Then if she wants to enter the public arena again, well... fair game.

[Clare53]

"Her hair had thinned to the point where she needed emergency help from her hairdresser and close friend." Thank God her hairdresser is a first responder. Whew!

[SaquaroSue]

I guess she'd have to put a pink phone next to the red one, for those REALLY important emergencies :D

[Michael Johns]

I'd be stressed to if I had protect the United States from Vladimir Putin and those darn Ruskies!

[forty8r]

Maybe she got blinded by the reflection of the sun on the bald head of Putin.

[KLordsha]

*Wondering if Palin will go for the Huckabee combover or the Hulk Hogan Mullet Tail*

[winta1]

this is nothing but cheap back stabbing. Certainly there are more important things to report on.

[fabricnthreads]

Mr. Malek in Washington, “My sense was she was very unhappy with the multiple tugs, pulls and pressures in her life, that her family life was not even close to what she regarded as acceptable,” he said, adding, “she just had a dissatisfaction with the way the job had developed."

Well, there we have it: proof positive Sarah would be the best president ever, since there are no multiple tugs, pulls or pressures to THAT job, and of course, she would have LOADS of family time. A perfect match for POTUS.

Did this woman have even a whisper of a clue what she was running for while she trotted all over the country with Grandpa???

Really, this would be funny if it was a movie. Instead she was a mere election from governing this country, and people STILL believe she is qualified to be president.

OMG

[myfatherschild]

Great points....but better yet....do those who supported her for the postion of VP even know what the job entails or how serious the responsibilites are? You have to be knowledgeable and much more as you can't wink, smile or curtsie in response to real world problems.

[fabricnthreads]

Vanity Fair has a great article on her.....Todd Purdum wrote it. You may be able to read it online, but the hard copy is worth the price of admission to the show.

[tahoegal]

I think Sarah would look really cute if she were bald and anorexic. Go Sarah!

[Ohsherri]

The woman can't handle "bloggers".

nuff said.

[jinjinpinti]

It is really difficult to feel empathy for Palin's health issues after sitting and reading the article in the latest "Audubon" about her full endorsemwnt and even participation in the wholesale slaughter of AK's wolves and bears with guns from aircraft, simply because they are "predators" who eat some of the game wealthy hunters might wish to hunt.

[Ohsherri]

And how about her being interviewed while on a fishing boat...
and HALF the boat is full of camera-man and crew.
What a joke.

[KLordsha]

I hair that!

[NuMexMama]

Palin was right to quite her office in Alaska. Harry Truman said it best, "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen."

[forty8r]

Being in frigid Alaska anything over 40 degrees is hot!

[Ohsherri]

3am phone call

from Betty the hairdresser.

[ThinkDeeper1]

Post of the day. LOL !! Gotta take care of those urgent situations. Yes, you betcha.

[i5kfun]

Thats to Betty the hairdresser