Did Sarah Palin mistakenly attribute a quote to John Wooden?

Why in the world does the Los Angeles Times care whether Sarah Palin misattributed a quote to John Wooden? Why even report something like this? Yes - it's from a blog, not a news article...but my goodness what a puff piece.

Especially when, in the body of the piece, the author admits that several people have quoted John Wooden as saying what Palin said he said. So how is it her fault if some source she referenced gave her the wrong info?

Los Angeles Times: Did Sarah Palin mistakenly attribute a quote to John Wooden?

BASKETBALL URBAN LEGEND: Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once said a notable impassioned quote about the importance of land to Americans.

Besides being a legendary basketball coach, the late, great John Wooden was also an inspirational writer and speaker. He wrote (or co-wrote) over half a dozen books and was an in-demand motivational speaker until his death in 2010. He was a proponent of what he called the Pyramid of Success, which consisted of philosophical building blocks for winning at basketball and at life. Some of the famous maxims that Wooden coined over the years include, "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail" and "Flexibility is the key to stability."

In her 2009 memoir, Going Rogue, former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin spoke about a time that Coach Wooden's words helped her through a disappointing moment in her life. Palin, who was a basketball player during high school (leading her team to an Alaskan state championship in 1982), has been a sports fan her whole life and even once dreamed of being a sportscaster for ESPN (which is at least partially the reason her daughter's name is Bristol) so it comes as no surprise that she would find comfort in the words of Coach Wooden. In 2002, after his election a Governor of Alaksa, Alaskan Senator Frank Murkowski had to choose his successor in the United States Senate. He put together a list of candidates, including Palin. He interviewed her, but after the interview was over she had the impression that he was not going to be appointing her. On the drive home, she discussed her disappointment with her husband, Todd.

We were disappointed...for about seven seconds. We talked about the way the "ball bounces." We reminded each other how UCLA Coach John Wooden had captured our thoughts in a book we'd read about him. I told Todd, "Coach Wooden said, 'Things work out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.'" We said in unison, "Or something like that!"

Later on in the book, Palin continued to show her appreciation for Wooden's words by making a Wooden quote the epigram for the chapter about her decision to run for Governor of Alaska against Murkowski. The quote reads:

Our land is everything...I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember that our grandfathers paid for it - with their lives.

It's a powerful quote. But did Wooden actually say it?

No, he did not. The quote has been attributed to Wooden by many different writers over the years, so Palin is certainly far from the only person to think that Wooden said it. Again, this is a man who is known for his quotes. There is a whole book called just Quotable Wooden. So when you become that famous for your quotes, people tend to both A. attribute quotes to you that you didn't say and B. accept that you said everything that is attributed to you. In this instance, however, it was more than just simply a case of someone saying, "Hey, this sounds like something John Wooden would say, I guess he must have said it" (which happens all the time with people like Mark Twain and Yogi Berra), but rather a case of confusion over the identity of the real originator of the quote, whose name is extremely similar to John Wooden. In fact, it is John Wooden...with a little bit added on at the end.

The quote is from John Woodenlegs (1909-1981), a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, who he served as tribal president from 1955 to 1968. A grandson of Wooden Leg, who fought against General George A. Custer’s troops at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, Woodenleg was an activist for Native American rights. The entire quote is quite interesting:

Our land is everything to us. It is the only place in the world where Cheyennes talk the Cheyenne language to each other. It is the only place where Cheyennes remember the same things together. I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it--with their life. My people and the Sioux defeated General Custer at the Little Big Horn.

So no, not something that Coach Wooden would ever say, I don't believe.

So this one is...

STATUS: False.

Thanks to Geoffrey Dunn of the Huffington Post for catching the quote mistake.

Palin fans urge her to get into 2012 race

From Yahoo News: Palin fans urge her to get into 2012 race
CHICAGO — Fans of conservative darling Sarah Palin urged the former Alaska governor to jump into the race for the White House Wednesday, running a small ad on a local station in the key electoral state of Iowa.

The ad comes as the Republican field remains unsettled just over a month before the Iowa caucuses, the first nominating event to pick a candidate to challenge Democrat President Barack Obama in the November 2012 elections.

Palin rocketed onto the national stage after being tapped as Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's running mate in 2008.

She has long flirted with a potential White House bid, but has missed the filing date to get onto the ballot in several early-nominating states.

Supporters at Conservatives 4 Palin are hoping that won't stop her from tossing her hat into the ring, despite her October 5 announcement that she will be "more effective" on the sidelines.

The ad, dubbed "The Challenge," ends with a crowd chanting "Run Sarah Run" after Palin speaks of the need for "sudden and relentless reform" to "return power to we the people."

It will run this week in Sioux City, Iowa at a cost of $6,500 the group said.

Sarah Palin: Hang Penn State's 'perverted former assistant coach'

I'm on the side of Sarah Palin with this one.

While it has been proven that many men have been put in jail unjustly over the last several decades, when a case is a "slam dunk" like this one, there is no room for doubt. DNA testing isn't going to prove Sandusky innocent.

And if there is no doubt, why should he get to live in prison for the rest of his life? Costing us millions of dollars? Because if I recall correctly, child molesters don't do well in prison, so they'd stick him in isolation or something, which costs even more...

I say euthanize him now.

From the Los Angeles Times: Sarah Palin: Hang Penn State's 'perverted former assistant coach'

Sarah Palin didn't mince words about her feelings toward Jerry Sandusky, Penn State's "perverted former assistant coach."

Palin, frequently outspoken, didn't stray from that tendency when speaking emotionally on the Penn State child-sex-abuse scandal with Sandusky at its center. The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate was interviewed by Greta van Susteren on Tuesday night on Fox News' "On the Record."

“It’s not the players’ fault that they have a perverted former assistant coach ..." she said.

PHOTOS: Penn State sex-abuse scandal

Sandusky has been charged with abusing eight boys over a 15-year period. He denies the charges, but the scandal has forced the ouster of the university's president and legendary football coach Joe Paterno, among others.

Palin continued: “As for the perp and perps that allowed the sinfulness to go on as they had allowed in the past, you know, I say about this assistant coach Sandusky: Hang him from the highest tree. I’ll bring the rope.”

When Van Susteren reminded Palin about the need to be found guilty in a court of law before being punished, Palin toned it down to say she would "bring the rope if he is guilty of what has been alleged."

“If he abused these young children and ruined their lives, unless they get a lot of help, Greta, in order to deal with the victimization that they are now suffering from, he needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law if he is truly guilty.”

Palin's words caused a stir on Twitter on Wednesday morning with both sides represented -- "HANGINGS 2 GOOD 4 HIM!" and "I agree" as well as "She's a lyncher" and "Must insert herself."

Sarah Palin calls for Eric Holder's ouster

From USA Today, On Politics: Sarah Palin calls for Eric Holder's ouster
Sarah Palin says Attorney General Eric Holder should be fired over the flawed weapons-trafficking investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.

The former GOP vice presidential nominee lashed out at Holder in a post on Facebook and joined Republicans such as Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar in seeking Holder's immediate resignation.

BLOG: Parents lash out

If Holder refuses to resign, Palin writes, "then President Obama – with whom the bucks ultimately stop – can prove that he respects honesty, transparency, and accountability in his administration by firing Holder."

Holder "expressed regret" this week to the family of slain border agent Brian Terry, who was killed in Arizona last year. Two weapons tied to the weapons investigation were recovered from the scene where Terry was killed. Holder said he wants to know why and how weapons that were under surveillance got into the hands of Mexican drug cartel members.

Obama said last month he has "complete confidence" in Holder.

Sarah Palin seeks to influence outcome of Kentucky election

From the State Column: Sarah Palin seeks to influence outcome of Kentucky election


Former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced her endorsement of Kentucky Republican attorney general candidate Todd P’Pool — the latest attempt by the Alaska Republican to remain a political force within the Republican Party.

On her Facebook page, Ms. Palin calls Mr. P’Pool “a new conservative leader for Kentucky” and hails him as someone ready to “take on entrenched special interests.”


The Alaska Republican announced earlier this year that she would not seek the Republican presidential nomination. Ms. Palin said she expects to remain an influential force within the 2012 race.

“After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking 2012 GOP nomination for president of the United states. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision.,” Ms. Palin said at the time.

In her statement, Ms. Palin said, “It’s not about me, it’s about all of us who are trying to wake up America.”

The Kentucky election for attorney general remains one of the most closely watched elections in the nation. Kentucky governor Steve Beshear is predicting he will coast to re-election over two rivals Tuesday, confident of becoming the second Democrat elected to statewide office. Mr. Beshear is likely to gain re-election despite high unemployment, budget shortfalls and an onslaught of third-party attack ads.

Nicolle Wallace throws open White House doors

From Los Angeles Times: Nicolle Wallace throws open White House doors

By Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times

November 7, 2011
A few years ago, after a successful career in the White House communications shop and a much less felicitous turn as one of Sarah Palin's handlers during the 2008 presidential campaign, Nicolle Wallace got the ridiculously overconfident idea that she could write a novel that exposed the inner workings of the White House the way "The Devil Wears Prada" peeled back the perfect facade of Anna Wintour's Vogue.

"What was so thrilling about that book was being transported into this otherwise opaque world of high fashion," said Wallace, 37, who studied journalism in graduate school at Northwestern but did not write professionally until a few years ago.

Unlike "The West Wing," Aaron Sorkin's vision of a loud, bustling place where important people ran around spewing epithets, Wallace knew the White House to be "as quiet as a museum," as she put it. Her White House, where she worked for six years, was a place that even after the attacks of 9/11 — as the vice president debated whether to order the downing of a U.S. passenger jet — housekeepers went on vacuuming.

"There are probably many, many people who are better writers than me," said Wallace, "but I knew I could set a novel in that real place and make it more real than anybody else."

This, at any rate, was what she was thinking when, during a post-election interview with Marie Claire magazine, she blurted out that she was working on a novel.

The New York Post's Page Six ran a little item. Sloan Harris, an agent at ICM, saw it and emailed Wallace.

"Said novel was a 10-page Word document," a very pregnant Wallace said over lunch last month at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. She scrambled to write some chapters.

"Eighteen Acres," released last year, made several bestseller lists. Wallace's second novel, "It's Classified" (Atria Books, $25), is now out, and she has signed a contract for a third. The first book explored the struggles of a female president, the second the issue of mental illness in the White House. The third will take place in the White House on the day of a terrorist attack.

The novels, set on the 18-acre White House grounds, feature a mature and grounded Republican president, Charlotte Taylor, modeled on Hillary Rodham Clinton, complete with a charming, philandering husband (a sports agent, not an ex-president), a female chief of staff who later becomes secretary of Defense, and a TV reporter conflicted about love and work who falls for the president's husband and later becomes press secretary to an unbalanced but charismatic vice president.

The vice president is named Tara Meyers, and if her name sounds like "Sarah," it was meant to. Wallace modeled the character on Sarah Palin, with whom Wallace had a brief, intense and unhappy professional relationship after Sen. John McCain chose her as his running mate in 2008.

Wallace was assigned to help prepare Palin for national interviews, including her famously disastrous encounter with Katie Couric. In Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue," Palin blamed Wallace for her on-camera meltdown.

Wallace's Tara has a gift for connecting with voters. But Tara is hiding a dark secret.

Beset for years by a crippling depression shared only with her husband, Tara crumbles under the pressure of her job. She eats compulsively, constantly calls in sick (who knew the vice president could call in sick?) and is managed by her overbearing, co-dependent spouse.

The novel opens with Tara resigning, as a special prosecutor launches an investigation to learn what the president knew, and when, about her running mate's instability.

In a positive review, the Washington Post called "It's Classified" "flawed but fascinating."

Wallace, who lives with her husband, Mark, on New York's Upper East Side, insisted she is not suggesting that Palin suffered from mental illness.

"I have no capacity to diagnose anybody with a headache, let alone mental illness," but she also said that during the '08 campaign she had conversations with people she would not identify about whether it might be possible to prevent Palin from being sworn in if McCain won. That dramatic assertion has been publicly disputed by at least one high-ranking McCain official, but Wallace said the issue was quickly dropped when it became apparent in the early fall that Barack Obama was going to win.

"I observed behaviors that I found alarming," said Wallace. "I worked in the White House on 9/11 where the vice president was given the authority to, if he deemed necessary, shoot down an American passenger jet. I wasn't sure that that burden would be one she could carry."

Palin's behind-the-scenes moods concerned many on the campaign staff — and those incidents have been well chronicled, notably by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in "Game Change," coming soon to HBO starring Julianne Moore as Palin.

"I didn't have a special secret about Sarah Palin," said Wallace. "I just had a feeling and some concerns. Her blank stares and her lashing out in some interviews, I think, gave voters pause about her too."

Through Tara, Wallace also explores a poignant aspect of the McCain-Palin relationship — a mutual feeling that each had let the other down; McCain by plunging an unprepared neophyte into an unforgiving spotlight, and Palin by bringing ridicule to the campaign when she seemed inarticulate and ill prepared in interviews.

"She was devastated every time she felt like she screwed up," said Wallace. "The affection between the two of them was real, it endures, and I think each felt pain for the trouble they caused the other."

Wallace, who grew up in Orinda in the Bay Area and graduated from UC Berkeley, swears, despite regular appearances on political TV talk shows as a GOP defender, that she is done with politics.

"I said day after day Sarah Palin was ready and prepared to be the country's vice president," Wallace said with regret. "A life in politics is for people who know themselves and know where their own line is between loyalty and honesty. I figured out where that line was in hindsight. I just didn't want to be a spinner anymore."

Sarah Palin, Howard Dean weigh in on Ky. race

USA Today On Politics: Sarah Palin, Howard Dean weigh in on Ky. race
Kentucky voters go to the polls tomorrow in what has been a little-noticed election outside the state. But Sarah Palin and Howard Dean are out to change all that.

Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, recently endorsed Republican Todd P'Pool in his bid to be Kentucky attorney general. Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and presidential candidate, is behind Jack Conway, who wants a second term in the job.

On her Facebook page, Palin calls P'Pool "a new conservative leader for Kentucky" and hails him as someone ready to "take on entrenched special interests."

Dean, who ran for president in 2004, blasted P'Pool in an e-mail last week for a "smear campaign" against Conway, according to Insight Cable News.

P'Pool accused Conway of covering up a drug investigation into his brother. Conway responded with his own ad saying he told his brother, Matt, to "take responsibility" for his actions.

The marquee race in Kentucky, by the way, is for governor. Democratic incumbent Steve Beshear is expected to easily defeat Republican David Williams. Beshear has a commanding 25-percentage point lead over Williams, according to a recent poll by the Louisville Courier-Journal and WHAS-TV.

Sarah Palin: What's She up to?

From International Business Times: Sarah Palin: What's She up to?
Sarah Palin ended seemingly insatiable speculation earlier this month when she announced she would not, in fact run for President. What's she been up to since then?

Not a whole lot, at least not publicly.

Palin has appeared at two events for the Extraordinary Women's Conference, a Christian's women's gathering--one in Lynchburg, VA on October 7-8 and one in Tupelo, MS on October 21-22.

In Tupelo, Palin alternatively discussed the personal and the political, after starting her speech off with a reference to both Elvis Presley and the "blue suede shoes" her daughet Bristol got while she was a contestant on the reality show "Dancing With The Stars," according to local TV station WTVA News.

"Everyone has challenges. Nobody's road is easy. Everyone in your relationships, in your workplace, in your churches, in your neighborhoods, maybe within your own family, a health battle, maybe a battle trying to keep your home. Maybe somebody in your family [is] trying to keep a job," Palin said, according to WTVA. "Everybody is going through battles; mine just happen to get exaggerated or just downright made up, and their splashed across a tabloid or [television show]."

On the political end, Palin said that even though American's had faith in God, they should be proactive in the direction the country goes.

"I do not believe that we shall fulfill our destiny as a nation that puts its trust in God if we just sit back and watch some fundamental transformation of our country. Turning it into something that is good and just and right and free in America [should be the focus]," Palin said according to WTVA.

Other than her appearance in Tupelo. Palin has weighed in on the Republican race she opted out of.

After the CNN debate in Nevada, Palin appeared on Fox News and declared former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to be the winner.

"I think we [Republicans] are more interested in substance and that's why like tonight Newt Gingrich again I think did the best because he seems to be above a lot of the bickering that goes on," Palin told Susteren, according to ABC News. "I don't know if he's going to be the one that surfaces as the fortunate candidate who gets to face Barack Obama because unfortunately, in this day and age, sometimes conventional wisdom would dictate that he who has the most money, the campaign dollars, wins. I don't want to believe that this is going to be the case this go-around."

More recently, Palin has been in the news for something she had nothing to do with--comedian Orlando Jones joking on Twitter last week that liberals needed to kill her.