Tabloid update: "Sarah Palin--What She's Hiding"

Yes, the National Enquirer pays for stories, and maybe people tell them stories that are more sensational than true, and maybe America Wants To Know threw out three dollars and forty-nine cents last night at the supermarket when we bought the Enquirer with the cover story headlined "Sarah Palin: What She's Hiding," but we just couldn't stop ourselves.

We bought the Globe, too, to read the "McCain's Wife HATES Sarah Palin!" story and also "Exposed! Secret Obama Diaries."

So if you don't do your own grocery shopping, you've come to the right place.

The family portrait from Alaska is looking more and more like one of those Disneyland Haunted House pictures that turns from sedate to scary while you're looking at it.

According to the Enquirer, Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol "scandalized her small town as a dope-smoking underage drinker and party girl." The tabloid says Governor Palin "banished" her from the family home after learning that she was pregnant.

Meanwhile, Governor Palin's 19-year-old son Track "became an OxyContin addict involved with vandalism and theft" during 2006 and 2007 after being "really into marijuana" in 2004 and 2005.

The tabloid says Governor Palin is also trying to hide an affair she had ten years ago with her husband's business partner. The affair "came close to ruining her marriage," a "family insider" revealed.

In other news, the 18-year-old boyfriend of Governor Palin's pregnant daughter is reported to be "a pot-smoking boozer who doesn't want to get married." Levi Johnston is "privately complaining about his new life," the Enquirer says. "It was like Levi got dragged out of his house to go to Minnesota," a friend told the tabloid, referring to the father-to-be's sudden trip to the GOP convention. The tabloid says the friend described Levi's relationship with Bristol Palin as "up-and-down." (Yes, they really printed that.)

Levi's friend told the Enquirer, "Bristol fell hard for Levi, but he was more into partying with his friends." You know how it goes. "He and Bristol had a lot of problems and broke up a few times," the friend said, "and they both definitely messed around with other people when they were broken up."

All right, that's enough of Dobie Gillis Gone Wild.

Let's go over to the Globe, where we learn that Cindy McCain can't stand Sarah Palin, whom she calls "that trailer-trash redneck, Nanook of the North."

The Globe says Cindy has "told close friends she thinks Sarah is ruthless and will do anything, absolutely anything to get ahead."

Mrs. McCain is also reported to be unhappy about an embarrassing video of her 72-year-old husband "appearing to check out his sexy running mate's butt several times after announcing her as his pick for veep."

The tabloid says the video has been viewed on YouTube a quarter of a million times, but that's not true. It's been viewed more than 513,000 times.

And then Laura Bush makes a cameo appearance in the story, as "jealous Cindy" frets that John, "who is known as a womanizer," may be "tempted to stray with Sarah" just as President Bush developed an "attraction" to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Laura Bush met Cindy McCain and Sarah Palin for an "ultra-private briefing" during the Republican convention, the Globe reports, and "felt the chill" between them.

"Laura came away in despair," the Globe says, quoting a "longtime Bush family friend," because her attempt to "play peacemaker" between the two women was unsuccessful.

"Cindy hates Sarah and everything she represents," a "Washington source" told the tabloid, predicting that if John McCain is elected, "America is in for one hell of a cat fight."

Over on the Democratic side, the "Obama Diary Scandal" story turns out to be about a diary kept by Obama's mother, Ann Dunham.

"The entries are shocking, scandalous, heart-wrenching and poignant" the Globe says. The tabloid quotes "an insider" who says the diaries contain "bombshell information" that "could destroy Obama's historic bid for the presidency."

Actually, there's nothing in the story about Barack Obama that hasn't been reported everywhere before. The big "bombshell" is that "the diaries are said to go into far greater detail about his Muslim background."

The Globe doesn't have any of the "greater detail."

Obama's "Muslim background" is that his father was born a Muslim, his mother's second husband was a Muslim, and he spent a few of his early grade-school years at a Muslim school in Jakarta before his mother sent him home to Hawaii to be raised by his (Caucasian, and not Muslim) grandparents.

The rest of the story is the sad tale of Ann Dunham's regrets about abandoning her son, her sad confrontation with him when he was using drugs in high school, her sad marriages and divorces, and her sad final battle with cancer.

It's enough to make you change the channel back to Dobie Gillis Gone Wild.

Did you know Sarah Palin's first child was born eight months after her wedding?


Copyright 2008

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