In a classic case of burying the lead, a newly posted promo for a campaign tell-all book has a bombshell buried deep within. Remember Sarah Palin's infamous $150,000 wardrobe from last year's campaign? The mystery was never solved as to who actually bought her the clothes. Turns out,Martin Eisenstadt is claiming to be the one who bought the wardrobe. Eisenstadt, you may remember, is the very same disgraced former McCain adviser who also admitted to being the source of the FoxNews story that Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country, and not so much a continent.
You may recall that when the story of Palin's wardrobe excess broke last year, it was only noticed by careful examination of FEC reports by the RNC. Most of the receipts were submitted by political consultant Jeff Larson, but Larson always demurred when asked details about the shopping sprees at the Minneapolis Neiman Marcus and elsewhere. McCain senior campaign adviser Nicolle Wallace angrily denounced Fred Barnes when he accused her of being behind the profligate wardrobe. Barnes subsequently apologized and admitted he was wrong to accuse Wallace:
"I was rough on Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, who was identified as the one responsible for getting the expensive clothes for Sarah Palin and being cowardly and not admitting she was the one. Well, it turns out I was wrong, I discovered. I apologize for my mistake and apologize particularly to Nicole Wallace."
To date, there has never been a full reckoning of what exactly happened at Neiman Marcus, whose idea it was to buy the clothes, who fronted the money, and who thought it would be a good idea to turn in receipts to the GOP knowing that they would come to light before the election. But now, perhaps, the first clue comes at minute 1:40 in this otherwise self-serving book promo for Martin Eisenstadt, where he says point blank, "I bought the Sarah Palin wardrobe" and there is a picture of him in front of Neiman Marcus.
So if we can believe that...
a. there is a book (which some commenters are starting to wonder), and
b. that the book is indeed being published by the prestigious Farrar, Straus, Giroux (home to 21 Nobel laureates and an equal number of Pulitzer winners)
c. that it is indeed coming out on Nov. 3 around the anniversary of the election, and
d. that the book is anything other than an amusing, but fictional, must-read political-satire
...then this would mean that this is the first comprehensive post-election book to come out about Sarah Palin. Her own book comes out next spring, and it will be interesting to see if and to what extent she refutes Eisenstadt.
[Full disclosure: There are those who would argue that I am actually one of the co-creators of "Martin Eisenstadt" and co-author of his upcoming book. Eisenstadt, though, has always disputed this point.]