Matt Lauer’s Tuesday morning “Today Show” interview with Palin biographer Joe McGinniss was little more than “the most recent illustration of the untrustworthiness of America’s mainstream media,” the former Alaska governor wrote hours later on her personal Facebook page.
McGinniss, who rented the home next to Palin’s Wasilla residence for several months while working on an upcoming book about her, responded obstinately to several of Lauer’s questions and even lashed out at Palin.
Lauer asked McGinniss how he responded to critics like Fox News’ Glenn Beck, who have called his tactics “creepy.”
“Creepy is as creepy does,” McGinniss responded simply.
But McGinniss soon pressed on. He accused Palin of unleashing the “hounds of hell,” having a willingness to “incite hatred,” and using “Nazi trooper” tactics.
MATT LAUER: But the reaction has gotten a little bit scary. There have been death threats against you. I know the FBI is involved. Wasilla, and Alaska state police. There was a Craigslist posting that asked a question of where in the woods your body would be found over the weekend.
JOE MCGINNISS: Yeah.
LAUER: The local Wasilla newspaper, The Frontiersman, published an editorial that read, quote “Those who are fond of Joe McGinniss might remind him, if he doesn’t already know, that Alaska has a law that allows the use of deadly force in protection of life and property.” I mean any regrets to all this? Do you wish you just rented a different house?
MCGINNISS: No. You know what actually what I’ve learned from that, Matt. And what you just recited, it’s very informative. And I think it’s probably a lesson for the American people of the power Palin has to incite hatred and her willingness and readiness to do it. She has pushed a button and unleashed the Hounds of Hell, and now that they’re out there slavering and barking and growling. And that’s the same kind of tactic and I’m not calling her a Nazi, but that’s the same kind of tactic that the Nazi troopers used in Germany in the ’30s. And I don’t think there is any place for it in America.
McGinniss told Lauer that, were Palin to move next door to him to write a book, he would bring her a plate of cookies and welcome her to the neighborhood.
But what Lauer and NBC failed to do appears to be what has most angered Palin, who claims that NBC promised to display during the interview a paragraph-long statement that she had written with her husband to counter McGinniss’ allegations.
“NBC broke their promise and didn’t run our statements after all,” Palin wrote on Facebook this morning. (READ PALIN’S FULL RESPONSE)
Palin added that she politely declined NBC’s invitation to appear with McGinniss.
“It’s a shame that Todd and I had another disappointing encounter with the media on Memorial Day of all days,” Palin wrote. “It was time that we could have spent with our kids and on a day when we honor those who have died in defense of our Constitution, including our freedom of the press.”
WATCH THE INTERVIEW
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