I'm Voting for McCain... And Yes, I Wrote the Us Weekly Cover Story

"Shame on you for writing that article! Shame on you!!!"

"I'm calling you because what you wrote is so politically slanderous. I'm shocked that a woman would do that. You are a disgrace to your gender and your country."

"Yeah, great story. You and your freak publisher. Just quit writing those kinds of stories. It's stupid, it's demeaning. People aren't as stupid as you think they are. Get a different job."

These bon mots are just a sampling of the messages recently left on my home answering machine. Seven others simply hung up. I didn't receive this many phone calls on my birthday. But everyone has a birthday; I was the only one to have a byline on the much-scrutinized Us Weekly story about Sarah Palin. That was me who explained the Alaska governor's grandma predicament, outlined her poor judgment traveling while having contractions with her fifth child and detailed her political controversies. And the whole experience left me reaching for my bottle of extra-strength Tylenol and wishing I had a flask in my office. Call it the latest side effects of being a John McCain supporter.

It's true. I am the Elisabeth Hasselbeck of Us Weekly. During our spirited office debates, it's up to me (along with the office's outnumbered Republicans -- hey, it's New York City) to defend the old man from Arizona, while the Democrats cheer for Barack Obama like he's a Jonas Brother. For months, I've touted McCain's vast experience and his economic policies without a trace of postmodern irony. (The credit -- or, uh, blame -- mostly lies with my parents, the only conservative Jews in Detroit). My take on his VP pick? "I think she's fascinating!" I chirped to my editor in chief early on September 1. "She's a mother of five and she hunts!"

A few hours later, Palin announced that her 17-year-old daughter was knocked up. All I could do was shake my head and sigh at the realization that the original "mom under attack" angle was going to change into a far-more tantalizing story -- and rightfully so. Rule No. 1 when running for the second-most important position in the free world: Never allow yourself to draw comparisons to the Spears family. The day only grew more frustrating as the revelations trickled into my inbox: The vetting process was rushed... Palin got her passport last year... wait, she called her former opponent what?! Oy.

The facts were out there, and there was no way to sugar-coat them. All I could do was address the relevant issues -- and, most importantly, remember the readers' needs. We're a magazine that thrives on babies, intriguing women and scandals. For this particular week, our potential vice president just happened to fit the bill. (Sorry, Angelina).

As I typed away in my cramped Manhattan office, I never expected the article to become a Fox News rallying cry (the jeers were all the more perplexing given that so few people had even read the piece beforehand). Nonetheless, despite the baby-mama dramas -- and the stinging phone calls -- I still feel that McCain would make the best president. And, no, I'm not ashamed of myself. Beep.

Comments

[Sparty1]

All I can say is, why? Why would you vote for someone who's an admitted adulterer, has been brought up on ethics violations, won't vote to help Vets, doesn't care about women's rights....­...shall I go on? For conservatives' votes, I guess all he has to say is that he wants to keeps tax cuts for the rich and he's against abortion. Yuk.

[elizaW]

Sparty1

Some of the most brilliant men in the history of civilization have had complicated personal lives, including one of the Democrat's best presidents - Bill Clinton. Vets know that John McCain understands their issues the way no other modern president (except maybe Eisenhower) has ever understood them. McCain's wisdom and empathy comes from experience. McCain's conservative vision for this country may include not raising taxes on the middle class but the bigger message is keeping this country moving forward so everyone benefits. It's a message that's very appealing to many Americans and that shouldn't surprise you.

[ezvu]

Exactly! mccain personal complications are actually good things! he voted against helping vets cause of greater task of helping them!! He cheated on his first wife
cause he knew second wife would help him help the world!! His anger is actually to bring a kinder America, his hipocrcy and lies are for moving country forward!! what a brilliant idea, support a clueless war with full face lies and american youth dead so everyone benefits. Now I understand why he want kick russia off g8, bomb bomb bomb iran even though he doesnt know where they are on the map! btw what the heck is interent?

[Lee2320]

You vote for who you have to Elisabeth, just be honest with yourself that you are voting with the "do as I say, not as I do" bunch - also known as the Republican Party. Conservatives and ergo Republicans are always the first to cry shame shame shame to parents with pregnant teenagers and women endangering the health of their fetus'. Except ofcourse, when the woman in question is one of their own, who might just help them to keep being able to invoke their morality on everyone else, while not practicing it themselves.

[raskolnikov72]

Well, everyone wants celebrity I guess ....

Monumental error to vote for McCain-Palin. God forbid Johnny Mac dies and we get an extremist whose greatest objective is to get rich. Not help her country or her people. The research is proving this out ... Vote for who you wish Mara

Bush-Palin: 4 More Years
"if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it ain't a moose"

[crossoverwriter]

Yeah, after watching the Repug convention in abject horror, I've come to understand that the base of that party is all about selfishly hoarding their money, and celebrating (obsessing) over wars.
War should be a last resort, and we need a president who understands more than what it's like to be in the Navy or in a foreign prison. I am sick and tored of hearing about McCain's POW stuff.
He obsessed over HIMSELF during that speech. Glorification of self is NOT what we need in a president.
There is more to life than killing people and being killed, and starting preemptive wars, folks!

If you want a true democracy you must give BACK to the people. You must be willing to contribute something, and I'm not just talking about cold hard cash here.

[darthmaul]

What I can't understand is why you don't join FOX news. You claim to be a journalist. You state that you liked McCain because of his "experience" and yet you gush about Palin, who has no experience and is in no way prepared to run the country should something happen to McCain. To me, and I speak only for myself, this ability to morph and accept contradicting and conflicting requirements from the same candidate is the mark of a true FOX journalist. This blinder mentality to pick and choose those qualities that you like in a candidate, while ignoring those that you don't like makes you the perfect choice for the Fox "Fair and balanced" brand of journalism.

[exhale09]

This camapign has never been about experience. "Time" in Political office obviously is not a factor, since McCain seceded that ground by chosing Palin for his running mate. NO, the important factor here is JUDGEMENT.

Someone who has actually thought about the issues and developed specific PLANS to change the direction our country has been going for 8 years for the better, and can ARTICULATE those PLANS to US, obviously has better judgement then someone who still supports the already proven to have FAILED policies of George Bush for the last 8 years.

The definition of insanity is doing the SAME things over and over, expecting different results.

[Denjudge]

I don't read US Weekly.

But I do find it interesting that a McCain supporter wrote that US Weekly article. It's not only interesting because of the irony in this revelation of Reinstein's vote.

It's very interesting for the following reasons:
1. It shows me that Republicans like tawdry stories (just as Democrats do).
2. It shows me that USWeekly is the type of magazine that likes to report on stories like this, just like many news organizations, including Fox, reported on Anna Nicole Smith's baby over and over and over again. There were so many rumors being reported on 24 hours a day, rumors about someone's family; rumors about a baby; rumors about drugs. And I think many of these rumors were being tracked and spread by Fox. This did not happen on NBC, CBS, and ABC.

For these reasons, I am not going to jump all over the the magazine as being biased to the left; I am not going to jump on the bandwagon that it is horrible to report on the Sarah Palin baby issue.

That's what these organizations do. If one really thinks USWeekly is horrible for talking about such a story, that's fine. I can undertand one's anger. However, I would also think that these same people also would be very angry about supposedly more respectable Fox News which repeatedly told stories and rumors about Anna Nicole Smith.

[swift goat pet for truth]

Some people vote for the party, regardless of reality.

That's reality.

She voted for Cheney and Rummy because to their vast experience.
Experience is all that matters.

That is her choice.
Get off her back.

[MammaCat]

Can I just add that why hasn't the McCain campaign let Ms. Palin loose so she can answer the multitude of questions that have been raised about her political views? Seems like she's hiding more than what we even know about.

[StillIRise]

I respect your opinion that McCain would make a better President, but I hope you fully understand that when you vote for McCain, you will be voting for Palin. It's one ticket! And since you have acknowledged that Palin has much to be desired, consider that should John McCain (72 years and and diagnosed four times with one of the deadliest cancers) become incapacitated at any time during his first term, let's say the day after his inauguration, Sarah Palin becomes our second worse nightmare (after Bush).

After finding out yourself that Sarah Palin is not the fascinating person you initially thought she was, and with the vetting process just beginning, and already imploding her candidacy, imagine if you will: President Sarah Palin for the next four years!

[Okieborn]

That is why we all should be proud to be an American!!
I hope someone honest is there to watch the vote count !!
Not a Bush Play book again !!!

[JohnFromColorado]

The Republican Party has driven this country into debt, a withering ecomomy, a war that costed more than a trillion dollars, torture, 4000 American lives. McCain has the same temperment as Bush. No curiosity, shoots from the hip. He is not a flip flopper. He is a flop, flop, flopper.

Republicans do not have any vision for America. They just don't want to be taxed, period. However bad the country gets, they just don't want to pay taxes.

Republicans do not view America as a community. Democrats do.

Setting up a system that helps the community is a liberal value. Setting up a system that helps the wealthy class is a conservative value.

Mara has not learned to value community yet.

[Hardtostop]

Mara,
You stated that once you started writing her story, the negative tidbits started filling up your in basket about her. Doesn't this tell you something about the thought process of the man you want to vote for. Why would he put the country in that position with a VP who he does not know, let alone know anything about except what he was told. Is it his judgement lacking or did others with different agendas influence him. Either way is this not a dangerous characteristics for the person holding the highest office in the land? That's an Arsenio Hall want to make you say HMMMMM moment.

[Keith52]

Once again a Republican cherry picks evidence - Mara Reinstein chooses McCain based on his "experience" - and disregards the rest of the disastrous evidence that would point a sane, logical person to a different conclusion. Mara, remember just because a person has experience doesn't mean he has learned anything. Perhaps if the 2008 John McCain were the same as the 2000 John McCain, you may have some valid reason to consider his "experience". The truth is John McCain and Sarah Palin are simply puppets, just like GWB, for the right wing neo cons who want YOU to keep making less than your male counterparts and to control your ovaries and sex life. You look like a young person. I believe all young people who vote for John McCain should put there money where there mouth is and join the armed forces. Because we will need many bodies to send to Iran if McCain is elected.

[DiBaskin]

I think Palin's daughters pregnacy should be private. Too bad her mother didn't agree and decided to announce it to the whole world. I know for me if something is private I tend to not tell a lot of people about it that is the only way I know to keep something private. If McCain and Palin don't know that the Media and the America public would be all over this they are in worse shape than I thought.

[exhale09]

As a mother of two daughters, I ask myself why Sarah Palin would accept this nomination knowing her daughters situation and knowing people like you Mara would plaster it all over Magazines to become a WORLD wide gossip story? Surely she did not expect the gossip mongers to over look this story. To then turn around and complain because what should have been expected by her as a mother, DID HAPPEN, is rather bizarre in my opinion.
Is she just naive? Did she have a lapse in "judgement" perhaps, or could it be she has cynically used her daughter's situation to make a republican religious right political point? Perhaps her own ambition trumped her own daughter's privacy and difficult situation.
After all, Sara Palin has a pretty good gig in Alaska as governor. It's not like she needed a job or anything to survive and had no choice.

Palin's daughter is a 17 year old pregnant child. She was told the morning McCain announced Palin as his pick, that her mother was the nominee for the VP of the United States. She had a couple hours to absorb that enormous life changing event. She was paraded on stage, hours later, before the National public with a huge blaket "hiding" her pregnancy in an attempt to concel her condition.­..as she held "her mother's" 5 month old baby, while her mother took the National spot light!

I don't get a mother who would do such a thing to her own daughter.

[SarahElizabeth86]

Good for you! I know there are more of us McCain/Palin fans out here.

You people who keep saying that McCain is Bush's third term are crazy. My goodness, heaven forbid the same party reside in the White House for 12 years or more. Nixon and Ford were nothing alike, no two people are exactly alike, and that goes for politicians as well.

[SadJ]

Wasn't it the campaign which announced Bristol's pregnancy? Palin threw her daughter under the bus to save herself from the rumour that she was the grandmother, she sacrificed Bristol. It was a political decision which has political consequences. How could they now cry foul about comments made on a campaign announcement? Talk of wanting it both ways!
The irony of it is that Palin also was a victim as she was used by the campaign against her child.