The Secret Wrath of Sarah Palin

(Newser) – Sarah Palin has her folksy, hockey mom image down pat, but Michael Joseph Gross of Vanity Fair spent the spring and summer following her and asking anyone who crossed paths with her about their experience. He found that Palin’s “on-the-record statements about herself amount to a litany of untruths and half-truths,” and that “anywhere you peel back the skin of Sarah Palin’s life, a sad and moldering strangeness lies beneath.”

Revelations from the profile include:

• On the campaign trail, Palin would fly into rages, screaming and throwing objects. Asked by an aide if this was typical, Todd replied, “You just got to let her go through it.”
• Todd should know; one family friend recalls a fight in which Sarah and Todd hurled all the canned goods in the cabinet at each other. Wasilla neighbors speculate that their marriage is troubled.
• When she joined John McCain’s campaign, Palin didn’t know who Margaret Thatcher was, among other knowledge gaps.
• Several of Palin’s recent business dealings have been dodgy. In Dallas, for example, Palin spoke before a group that claimed to be a nonprofit, but wasn’t. It was supposedly on behalf of a women’s center, whose website existed solely to sell tickets for the event—and disappeared afterward.
• A Wasilla city councilwoman says it was impossible to deal with flighty Mayor Palin, who “does not understand math or accounting—she only knows buzzwords, like ‘balanced budget.’”
• The McCain campaign spent $3,000 on underwear for Palin.
• Palin's claim that she asked her children if she should run is untrue. She didn't even tell them she was running personally, having a McCain staffer do it instead.