Inside “Vanity Fair” world of Sarah Palin

So you think you know Sarah Palin?

There’s so much more to the former Alaska governor and possible 2012 presidential candidate than is on public view, according to a new and very lengthy “Vanity Fair” profile, which takes readers behind the scenes and into “the surreal new world Palin now inhabits.”

It’s not pretty. Indeed,  her supporters at Conservataives4Palin have gone on defense calling it “a hit piece.” And Palin tweets that it’s “yellow journalism.”

The article by  writer Michael Joseph Gross  goes on extensively about a lot of  things  that do not cast the former governor  in a nice light, including:

• Palin’s new vocation — “She keeps tight control of her pronouncements, speaking only in settings of her own choosing, with audiences of her own selection, and with reporters kept at bay.”
• Her temperament  — “As soon as she enters her property and the door closes, even the insects in that house cringe. She has a horrible temper, but she has gotten away with it because she is a pretty woman.” (attributed to a friend of the Palins’)
• Her image — “This whole hunter thing, for Sarah? That is the biggest fallacy,” says one longtime friend of the family. “That woman has never hunted.”
• Her tipping — Not so generous with the gratuities, according to maids and bellhops at a couple of hotels in the Midwest.
• And her underwear — Something about Spanx girdles and push-up bras.

There’s a reason they call them unmentionables.

The folks at Conservatives4Palin  point out that even some people  who aren’t  Palin fans agree that  mentioning the underwear was just wrong.

Among them, New York Times Op-Ed columnist Charles M. Blow who tweeted:  “When’s the last time you read a profile of a male politician that mentioned his underwear? This is the kind of thing that crosses the line.”