Rather than serve up the usual healthy dose of Sarah Palin tabloid gold (see Willow's homophobic Facebook slurs, Bristol advancing on "Dancing With The Stars" and the 67-year-old Wisconsin man who shot his television after Bristol's performance for today's serving), "The Palin Network" offers a detailed account of the former Alaska governor's political A-team and analysis of how she wields her relatively new political influence.
In case you don't have time to read the entire article, Surge Desk offers a selection of the most memorable insights, quotations and reflections from The New York Times profile below.
Nobody expected her meteoric rise to celebrity:
How to "roll" like Sarah Palin:The advisers who strenuously advocated for McCain to select Palin seemed as unprepared for her as they would later claim she was for the national stage. They had planned on deploying Palin like a conventional vice presidential candidate -- fundraisers, secondary markets -- but otherwise stowing her away for heavy debate prep. Instead, "because she was a much bigger draw at rallies than McCain himself," a former adviser says, the budget for her side of the campaign "quadrupled from what they'd anticipated; the amount of personnel had to be ratcheted up, and dealing with the Palin phenomenon came to consume much of [senior strategist Steve] Schmidt's time."
What the White House thinks of Palin's social media savvy:"I just tweet; that's just the way I roll," Palin told me. "Just expressing my feelings via Twitter and Facebook. I choose them because they're convenient for me, especially from Wasilla." She continued: "The only thing I do consider is when I think of what's going on in the East Coast, with the difference in time zones. I can tweet before going to bed at midnight or 1 and know that they're up and at 'em, and they're going to have to respond."
She only reads books by Glenn Beck, oh wait:His voice dripping with exasperation, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said to me one July afternoon in his office: "If I would have told you that I could open up a Facebook account or a Twitter account, simply post quotes, and have the White House asked about those, and to have the entire White House press corps focused on your quote of the day on Facebook -- that's Sarah Palin. She tweets one thing, and all of a sudden you've got a room full of people that want to know ... "
Does Sarah Palin think Sarah Palin is qualified to be president?:"I continue to read all that I can get my hands on -- and reading biographies of, yes, Thatcher for instance, and of course Reagan and the John Adams letters, and I'm just thinking of a couple that are on my bedside, I go back to C.S. Lewis for inspiration, there's such a variety, because books have always been important in my life." She went on: "I'm reading [the conservative radio host] Mark Levin's book; I'll get ahold of Glenn Beck's new book -- and now because I'm opening up," she finished warily, "I'm afraid I'm going to get reporters saying, Oh, she only reads books by Glenn Beck."
Read the entire Palin profile at The New York Times."I am," Sarah Palin told me the next day when I asked her if she was already weighing a run for president. "I'm engaged in the internal deliberations candidly, and having that discussion with my family, because my family is the most important consideration here."