An "if" too far, alas

You've probably seen around the internet where Joe McGinniss (Fatal Vision etc.) has rented the house in Wasilla next to his next book subject, Sarah Palin. Todd Palin went over and bitched McGinniss out, Palin went off on McGinniss on her Facebook page, and all the flying monkeys were unleashed.

McGinniss talks about the experience.

"I would term this hysterical," said McGinniss. "The mayor said to me, when I chatted with him in his office a couple of days ago, 'You know, if Sarah had the brains that we like to think she has, Todd would have come back and said, do you know who's living next door? This son of a bitch McGinniss who wrote that Portfolio piece. He's writing a book about you. Sarah should have baked a plate of cookies, and come around the fence, and said hi, and laughed about this.' I would have happily accepted a cookie, and then in my book I would have had a lovely scene about how gracious she had been." McGinniss sighed. "She is, in many ways, a very gracious person." * * *

"Look, this is a pain in the ass for them," he said. "I understand that. If I were her, I'd be upset. I'd be annoyed. But I'd be an adult about it, and I would figure out, okay, how can we resolve this in a way that's not going to make into something that everybody gets obsessive about? By being here I have learned things, and I've gotten an insight into her character, into her ability to incite hatred, that before I only knew about in the abstract."

More and more, this woman reminds me of the presidential candidate in The Dead Zone. Except I'm not sure even Stephen King could've dreamed her up.