http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0510/Palin_neighbor_sought_McGinniss_as_tenant.html?showallSarah Palin's next-door neighbor sought out author Joe McGinniss as a tenant, McGinniss's son said.
"No one is stalking anyone," Joe McGinniss, Jr., a novelist whose father is the non-fiction writer, wrote in response to an email from a Palin supporter who confused his email address and his father's. (He shared the email with me.) "A woman was renting her house and sought out the author because the Palins had crossed her (owed her money for renovations she had done at their request and never paid her for). So she knew McGinniss was writing the book and found him and offered him the house."
The neighbor "turned down more lucrative offers from the National Enquirer who wanted the house so they could 'stalk' and take pictures, etc... She said no," he wrote.
McGinniss, Jr. wrote that Palin is "inspiring a lot of hate in people, appealing to so many of people's worst instincts. Sad and scary." And he defended his father's decision to rent the house:
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The Tennessee woman to whom he responded, whom McGinniss, Jr. said was "the most rational-sounding" one, called the journalist a "leech" and wrote that, if a reporter moved in next to her, " I can only imagine how outraged and invaded I would feel."
McGinniss, Jr. added, "Sarah Palin's middle-school style reaction to an author renting next door is quite something. But maybe my father's grandchildren, when they fly up to visit, can make some new friends. They'd probably have a lot of fun together actually."