Todd And God

Jonathan Martin draws lessons from Robert Draper's NYT Magazine story:

Draper vividly depicts Palinworld for what it is: a seat-of-the-pants-operation where loyalty is everything and in which convention is lightly regarded. This is a large part of why she was such a logistical nightmare for campaigns. Palin didn’t want to expand her circle in a fashion necessary to meet all the demands somebody of her celebrity faces. So she wound up creating undue headaches for herself. Draper adds to the litany, reporting that the former governor has blown off figures such as Roy Blunt and Orrin Hatch and institutions like National Review thanks to what he calls the “the inefficiency of her network.”

But even Palin’s uber-loyal network seems to consist of individuals who act more as protectors than advisors. She and her husband, Todd, effectively run Palin Inc off their BlackBerries.

When you have as many lies to defend against as Palin does, when your entire public persona is a fiction, when you have nary a clue about the issues of the day ... of course, you have to have protectors rather than advisers. No one advises Palin, except Todd and God. She has the glib cruelty of George W and the character of Richard Nixon. But Nixon, for all his faults, was authentic. Nothing about Palin is authentic. She knows nothing but appearance and the constant deception and seclusion necessary to maintain it.