The Vanity Fair Attack Piece on Palin Is So Bogus

The Corner points this out:



On Sarah Palin's 'Narcissistic Personality Disorder' [Mark Hemingway]
In Todd Purdum's now infamous Vanity Fair profile, one of the more sensational accusations was this:

More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy” — and thought it fit her perfectly.
Bill Kristol took to The Weekly Standard's blog to declare that this accusation seems somewhat absurd:
Is there any real chance that "several" Alaskans independently told Purdum that they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? I don’t believe it for a moment. I’ve (for better or worse) moved in pretty well-educated circles in my life, and I’ve gone decades without “several” people telling me they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Even Eric Boehlert, of the lefty Media Matters for America, said he agreed with Kristol that Purdum's claim "doesn't pass the smell test." So I thought some very rudimentary investigation was in order. It turns out that the idea that Palin had narcissistic personality disorder as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is something of a meme in liberal circles and has been long before Purdum's VF profile.
To wit, a Google search of the Huffington Post for "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" and Sarah Palin returns some 752 results. Obviously, not all of those results are relevant but in just the first four pages of Google results I found five different comments from the website which reference Sarah Palin having narcissistic personality disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and all were written well before Purdum's profile. See here, here, here, here and here. (It futher appears that one of those commenters has made the observation more than once.)
Again, these examples are from just the first few Google results on one liberal website. It appears this is a meme that gained currency among those on the far left who actively despise Palin and posess no special insight into her. Either Purdum is far too credulous and should have investigated the claim, or Purdum deliberately wrote up baseless claims of narcissistic personality disorder to make it sound like the diagnosis came from Alaska insiders and in the process made the claim far more salacious. Either way, I don't think Purdum's reporting is to be trusted.

If you are going to lie please don't do it in a way that insults your readers intelligence