Now that Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue is out, it's worth taking a look at the book that Ken Silverstein at Harper's says is "essential reading for all political junkies": I Am Martin Eisenstadt: One Man's (wildly inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans, by none other than fake pundit (or "fundit") Martin Eisenstadt - the man best known as the former McCain adviser who took credit for spreading the rumor that Sarah Palin didn't know Africa was a continent.
Those who have followed Eisenstadt's misguided career may know that he is in fact the creation of two award-winning filmmakers: myself and my creative partner Eitan Gorlin. For the uninitiated, let's just say that Eisenstadt - a Sr. Fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom & Democracy - continues to dispute that claim.
The book itself is largely about the McCain/Palin campaign, and in it, Eisenstadt claims not only to have leaked the Africa comment to FoxNews' Carl Cameron, but also admits to being the one who bought Palin's $150,000 wardrobe for the RNC Convention. After buying the clothes at Neiman Marcus, Eisenstadt interrupts Palin in the middle of her getting a spray-on tan which leads him to comment:
As Sarah lay flat on a portable tanning table, her towel dropped to the sides. Her back was as white as the Alaska tundra, with the top of her buttocks rising like the foothills of Mount McKinley. A very attractive woman began to spray on a smooth golden mist. "Cindy told me to get rid of my Eskimo tan before going on TV tonight. John's funny about the melanomas, so they flew in Tracy here to spray me up good."
Like many passages in the book, this little GILF fantasy is actually based on a couple of real life facts. Yes, Sarah Palin greeted campaign staffers in a towel at the convention. And yes, the FEC reports indicate that a spray-on tan expert was flown in from LA just for the convention. We're told by our editor that this is called "contemporary historical fiction" - we're told by others that it is just annoying. You be the judge. (And to help you sort out fact from fiction, the clue is if it's footnoted, it's probably true.)
But I Am Martin Eisenstadt is much more than just a fake campaign tell-all. It also reaches back to 35 years of (mostly) Republican malfeasance as Eisenstadt was literally raised by the kingmakers of GOP politics - from John Ehrlichman to Lee Atwater to Karl Rove. Marty even admits that while he spied on his mother pleasuring Nixon aide Ehrlichman in the Oval Office, he may have accidentally leaned against a certain tape recorder button for 18 ½ minutes of oedipal shame. As for his own sexual awakening, Marty boasts of losing his own virginity to none other than Fawn Hall at the height of Iran-Contra.
And the third element of the book is what we call an existential cyber mystery. During the course of the election campaign, Marty is forced to confront increasingly troubling internet rumors that he doesn't exist. In the age of Google, this is the ultimate damage that one's enemies can inflict, and Eisenstadt has no shortage of enemies - both real and imagined. In fact, this internet mystery closely mirrors the real rumors and innuendos that consistently threatened to pull the plug on our Eisenstadt ruse. Like in the book, we too, were vexed by a certain Brazilian golf blogger, which ultimately led to profiles in the New York Times, Associated Press, and newspapers across the globe.
But unlike poor Marty - whose career lay in ruins by the end of 2008 - we were doing much better. The Times story led to a book deal with Farrar, Straus, Giroux - the (once) prestigious publishing house that claims 21 Nobel and an equal number of Pulitzer winners in their fold. Rumor has it, that with the publication of our book, some of those awards will be revoked. To ward off speculation of their involvement, they've even created a new imprint - "Faber & Faber" - to deflect criticism of their poor taste in authors.
I Am Martin Eisenstadt: One Man's (wildly inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans is enjoying great reviews and is available now in bookstores across the US and Canada and on Amazon. Eisenstadt, Mirvish and Gorlin are currently on a book tour now, and will be having their West Coast launch party on Dec. 3 at Book Soup.