More marvellous Palin dirt.
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From The Times September 3, 2009
Hockey Mom? Sarah Palin stayed at home, says Levi Johnston
Giles Whittell in Washington
If the father of her grandson is to be believed, Sarah Palin is not just the vice-presidential candidate who lost and the Governor who quit. She is also the parent who doesn’t do parenting — an allegation as political as it is personal.
According to Levi Johnston, 19, who nearly married her daughter, Mrs Palin was the supermom who did not cook, the hockey mom who almost never attended her son’s hockey matches and the fearless outdoorswoman who had never touched a fishing rod and did not know what sort of gun nestled in a box under her bed.
The latest injection of spite and mild sensation into the Palin saga is not likely to damage whatever political ambitions she still has but it is the first to deny the existence of the core personal qualities that so endeared her to much of the Republican base last autumn.
Exhausted, or bored, by her duties as head of Alaska’s state government, Mrs Palin would return home most days by 5pm to take long baths and watch home improvement shows on television, Mr Johnston says.
Mrs Palin argued frequently with her husband about the idea of divorce, insisted that she was going to adopt the baby her daughter was about to have with Mr Johnston and rapidly lost what enthusiasm she had for the Governor’s job on her return to Alaska last November, he claims.
Most woundingly for a woman portrayed by the Republican campaign as a doting supermom, the former high school ice hockey star writes: “There wasn’t much parenting in that house. Sarah doesn’t cook, Todd [her husband] doesn’t cook — the kids would do it all themselves: cook, clean, do the laundry and get ready for school.”
Given Mrs Palin’s workload, voters might reasonably forgive her for cutting back on household chores but her political persona remains so closely aligned to what her supporters hope is the real woman underneath that such claims could damage her.
Mr Johnston’s vengeful description of the Palin household, published yesterday by Vanity Fair, comes after his split from Mrs Palin’s daughter, Bristol, 18, who gave birth to their son Tripp in December.
It also marks Mr Johnston’s formal debut as a would-be celebrity. He has retained the services of a management team to field offers of film roles and modelling work.
He has no shortage of axes to grind with the Palin family. His account describes being summoned without warning from work in the snowfields of northern Alaska to join the family at the Republican convention.
He claims to have hated it. Installed in a Minnesota hotel in which an entire floor was reserved for the Palins, he was sized up for new suits by Burberry and Armani. “I remember thinking, ‘How could this get any worse?’, ” he writes.
Mr Johnston has since complained of having access to his son restricted by the Palins. His portrait of the family that might have moved into the vice-presidential mansion in the grounds of the US naval observatory in Washington is beyond dysfunctional. While Mrs Palin complained of the stresses of the Governor’s job, her husband, a professional snowmobiler, “was always out in the garage working on his snow machines and drinking beer or screwing off [loafing around]”, Mr Johnston says.
The Palins appeared happily married for the cameras on the campaign trail, but slept in separate bedrooms during the Republican convention and “wouldn’t go anywhere together unless the cameras were out”.
As the gossip bible of the American liberal elite, Vanity Fair is unlikely to torpedo Mrs Palin’s prospects as a presidential candidate — unless her core constituency of red-state outdoorspeople takes seriously the revelation that she does not even know how to shoot.
When Mr Johnston learnt that she had a gun and asked what type it was, she did not know, he claims. “It was in a box under her bed.”
Since resigning the governorship of Alaska, Mrs Palin has signed on with the Washington Speakers’ Bureau and received 950 invitations, for which it is estimated she could earn at least $100,000 (£61,500) per appearance.
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