Sarah Palin’s Lack of Leadership Shows in ‘Going Rogue’

Is Sarah Palin truly the best our country has to offer as a future world leader and president of the United States of America?

The temperature was close to zero Monday as I left the house to buy Sarah Palin‘s memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life.” The book was almost impossible to find in Anchorage before its official release Tuesday. The salesman who finally sold me one asked me to promise I wouldn’t reveal his identity if he sold me a pre-publication copy.

I made the pledge and put down my money. I’ve written about Palin since she ran for governor in 2006, interviewed her, moderated campaign debates in which she participated. I wanted to see what she’s like in prose.

In “Advertisements for Myself,” Norman Mailer admitted “a desire to inflict my casual opinions on a half-captive audience.” That’s what Palin has done in her 400-plus-page advertisement for a woman who, at age 45, seems to have permanently attached the word former to her name — former beauty queen, former mayor of Wasilla, former governor of Alaska, former Republican vice presidential nominee.

Palin is now beginning a book tour on which she will do what she does best: draw crowds, create controversy and stir up the conservative base. These things are almost certain to make her, like Mailer, a bestselling author. But they won’t make her the next president of the United States.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Palin, an amateur as a candidate, became a professional victim, blaming others when encountering political turbulence.

The Persecution of Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin's overwhelming vindictiveness is apparent throughout "Going Rogue."

Maybe in their business lives, conservatives are the stern, unforgiving masters of capitalist lore. But when it comes to politics, oh, do they love a whiner!

It is her mastery of the lament that explained former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin‘s appeal last year, and now her knack for self-pity is on full display in her book, “Going Rogue.” This is the memoir as prolonged, keening wail, larded with petty vindictiveness. With an impressive attention to detail, Ms. Palin settles every score, answers every criticism; locates a scapegoat for every foul-up, and fastens an insult on every critic, down to the last obscure Palin-doubter back in Alaska.

From Ms. Palin’s masterwork, we learn that the personal really is the political. Every encounter with a critic seems to be a skirmish in the culture wars, from the Alaska debate moderator who didn’t play fair once to the “wealthy, effete young chap” who ran against her for governor but who, in one of the quickest transitions from anti-snob to snob in all of literature, is also said to have served as “our limo driver at [her husband] Todd’s cousin’s wedding.”

2008 Campaign Footage Used by Fox News – Claims ‘Huge Crowds’ at Sarah Palin’ Book Signing (Video)

By the look of Fox News‘ video footage, one would think that Sarah Palin‘s new book “Going Rogue” was in such demand, it was drawing tens of thousands of people into overcrowded book stores.

That’s because on Wednesday, the network showed 2008 footage of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail while discussing the “huge crowds” who were attending her book tour.

Fox has since made the following statement:

“This was a production error in which the copy editor changed a script and didn’t alert the control room to update the video,” said Michael Clemente, senior vice president of news at FOX.

This new oversight comes off the heels of Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” calling out Sean Hannity for running video in September of a hugely attended Tea Party protest in Washington. At the time, however, Hannity was discussing a far less attended rally that took place in early November.

Below, watch videos of both Fox News flaps.  Is this a simple accident or a troubling trend?

Michael Langston Moore
Examiner.com

Fact Check: Palin’s Book Goes Rogue on Facts

Sarah Palin shrugs off the truth on many, many issues in her new book "Going Rogue."

WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin‘s new book reprises familiar claims from the 2008 presidential campaign that haven’t become any truer over time.

Ignoring substantial parts of her record if not the facts, she depicts herself as a frugal traveler on the taxpayer’s dime, a reformer without ties to powerful interests and a politician roguishly indifferent to high ambition.

Palin goes adrift, at times, on more contemporary issues, too. She criticizes President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush — a package she seemed to support at the time.

A look at some of her statements in “Going Rogue,” which was released Tuesday:

Palin: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking “only” for reasonably priced rooms and not “often” going for the “high-end, robe-and-slippers” hotels.

The facts: Although travel records indicate she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) overlooking New York City’s Central Park for a five-hour women’s leadership conference in October 2007.

Nicolle Wallace: Palin’s Book Based on Fabrications & Bizarre Fixation on 2008 Presidential Campaign (Video)

Former McCain campaign staffer Nicolle Wallace tore into Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue” Tuesday night, saying the book was “based on fabrications” and exhibited a “bizarre fixation” on past events.

In her book, Sarah Palin wrote that Wallace pushed her to sit down with Katie Couric to boost the anchor’s “self esteem.”

Wallace gave a statement to “The Rachel Maddow Show” calling the anecdote total fiction. “The notion that there was a conversation that I tried to cajole her into an interview with Katie Couric is fiction,” Wallace said. “I am not someone who throws around the word self-esteem. It is a fictional description.”

As for the book in general, Wallace said, “I think she has a legitimate complaint that things could have been better conceived. A book about that would have been painful, but not unfair. What she gets wrong is this personalization that Steve Schmidt and I were lone villains … She hated me from the beginning. I try not to take it personally. The fact is, she wrote a book based on fabrications … This book is a bizarre fixation on things that everyone else has moved on from.”

Watch:

Rachel Weiner
The Huffington Post

McCain: Palin Legal Bill was for “Troopergate,” NOT for Vetting

Former GOP presidential candidate Senator John McCain comments to "The Hill" on his vp running mate Sarah Palin's new book "Going Rogue."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who spoke to The Hill Monday evening, denied Sarah Palin’s allegation that his campaign stuck her with a $50,000 legal bill to pay for the cost of vetting her as a potential vice presidential candidate.

McCain said the bill was for legal work related to allegations that Palin made improper use of her influence as Alaska’s governor to press for the dismissal of a state trooper named Mike Wooten. Wooten was embroiled in a custody dispute with Palin’s younger sister, Molly McCann.

“That was addressed by Trevor Potter,” said McCain, “That was over the Troopergate.”

In a statement to the Associated Press, Potter, McCain’s general counsel, denied that McCain’s campaign billed Palin for vetting her.

“To my knowledge, the campaign never billed Gov. Palin for any legal expenses related to her vetting and I am not aware of her ever asking the campaign to pay legal expenses that her own lawyers incurred for the vetting process,” he said.

Palin made the charge in her new book, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” which listed a litany of complaints Palin had with McCain’s campaign, such as its decision to limit her access to reporters. Palin also questioned how the campaign handled the announcement of her daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

McCain told The Hill that he nevertheless enjoyed Palin’s book.

“I hope she sells lots of them,” he said.

Palin received a $5 million advance from HarperCollins, according to the New York Times.

Alexander Bolton
The Hill

Sarah Palin Angered by Newsweek Cover

Sarah Palin is featured on the cover of this week's Newsweek magazine, in a photo previously used in the August 2009 issue of Runners World.

For the second time since Sarah Palin stepped into the national political spotlight, a photo of the former Republican vice-presidential candidate featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine is sparking controversy. Palin herself blasted the “out-of-context” cover as “sexist” on her Facebook page.

Originally published in the August 2009 issue of Runners World, the photo features the former Alaska governor in short runner’s shorts. It was part of a multi-photograph slideshow that accompanied an article about Palin and her love for the sport titled, “I’m A Runner.” In her Facebook post late last night, Palin took issue with Newsweek using a photo from an article about health and fitness to promote an analysis piece contemplating her relevance as a political figure:

“The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this “news” magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner’s World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness — a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention — even if out of context.

The reaction to the Newsweek cover has predictably sparked outrage from conservative supporters of Palin and kudos from liberals who oppose her. CBN commentator David Brady called the cover “a new low” for the “biased” magazine, adding that Newsweek has a history of portraying liberal women as “heroes for the next generation,” while portraying conservative women like Palin as “nuts and dopey.” Meanwhile, documentary photographer Nina Berman hailed the cover as “brilliant” and “shrewd” for using a “propped photo where Palin is an obvious participant … to show how far out she is willing to travel on the road of self promotion” while “shield[ing] themselves from what would have been the inevitable criticism if they had dolled her up themselves and posed her the same way.”

The current cover flap isn’t the first time Newsweek has generated controversy with a photograph of Palin. The October 13, 2008, issue featured an extreme close-up of Palin that seemed to be devoid of the high-tech retouching often employed by magazines. Conservatives claimed this highlighted some of Palin’s supposed “flaws,” like wrinkles around her eyes.

Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham told Yahoo! News that the photo choice was simply the “most interesting image available”:

“We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard.”

Brett Michael Dykes
Yahoo News

Palin’s Oprah Interview: Pick Your Scooplet

Sarah Palin discusses "Going Rogue" on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Sarah Palin‘s interview on Oprah started off newsy, with lots of talk about her McCain campaign handlers and how they restricted her, the Katie Couric interview, etc. There are a few headlines flying around this evening after it finally aired…so here are a few of them. You can pick the scooplet you think is most newsworthy. In no particular order:

‘Going Rouge’ and the Art of Jujitsu Publishing

"Going Rouge: An American Nightmare" is now available for purchase at www.orbooks.com

It was just six weeks ago that OR Books, the new publishing company set up by John Oakes and myself, decided to enter the fray against Sarah Palin by publishing our now much talked-about anthology, “Going Rouge.” In doing so, we realized we would not be competing on a level playing field. The book we were up against, Sarah Palin’s own “Going Rogue,” is the lead title this fall from HarperCollins, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp, one of the largest media corporations on earth. Harper had agreed to pay the ex-Alaskan governor an advance reputed to be $7 million dollars, aiming to make at least some of this back from a first printing of one and half million copies. Pre-sales alone had taken their book to number one on Amazon.

On our side, the resources were less extravagant. OR Books has a full-time staff of two, John and me, together with help from a small group of talented part-timers. The OR office rotates between the Eros café on New York’s 7th Avenue during the day, and the bar at El Quijote, next to the Chelsea Hotel, at night. The more stressful the day, the earlier we head for the evening office. “Going Rouge,” a dazzling philippic of acrid Palintology assembled by Nation editors Richard Kim and Betsy Reed, is our first book.

Remember Sarah, Confucius Says “Before You Embark on a Journey of Revenge, Dig Two Graves.”

Sarah Palin, Andrew Halcro, left, and Tony Knowles were questioned by Larry Persily in a November 2006 debate in Alaska.

Alaskan Republican Andrew Halcro, the former Alaska State Representative and well regarded political blogger is none too pleased with Sarah Palin‘s poisonous arrows aimed at him (and many, many others) in her new book “Going Rogue.”  On his blog today Halcro, a no-nonsense politician who recently stated his intention to challenge Representative Don Young in the upcoming 2010 Republican primary, sent Sarah Palin a clear warning as to how the inaccuracies throughout “Going Rogue” may be dealt with by those personally attacked.

BTW, checkout the video clip of Andrew Halcro, Sarah Palin and Tony Knowles debating each other on the issue of abortion back in November 2, 2006.  Observe how very different Halcro, Knowles and Palin answer the question on what they would advise their own daughter(s) to do in the case of a pregnancy as a result of rape.  Palin is smiling, her reply is unemotional and almost cheerful, while Halcro and Knowles each give thoughtful, sensitive responses.

Sarah Palin Truth Squad

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November 16, 2009: On Friday after they received an advance copy of Sarah Palin’s new book, the Associated Press called me to get a response from the two hundred plus words that Alaska’s former 1/2 term governor dedicated to me.

My favorite passage as read to me by Rachel D’Oro at the AP was when Palin referred to me as an “effete chap.”

An effete chap? Who am I, Nick Carraway in the Great Gatsby?

And by the way, when did Palin start using 17th century Latin in her dialogue?

According to the brief excerpts I’ve heard, the book seems like it’s less about her and more about blaming everybody around her for all of her short comings. From her lack of intelligence to the word getting out about her pregnant daughter, no matter what the problem or criticism, it’s always somebody elses fault and never hers.

This in and of itself is rich in irony.

After all, how many real rogues complain about being hemmed in by the actions of others?

Isn’t that the antithesis of a rogue?

However, once the book is on the street beginning Tuesday, those throughout Palin’s 413 page pity party that suffer the wild blows of her imagination will come forward with guns blazing to refute the revisionist history Palin has penned.

From the brief passages that Palin has written about me in her book, the terms unmitigated lies, narcissistic delusions and libel came to mind first.

Obviously she never learned the timely Confucius warning:

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

Beginning Tuesday…the people whom Palin has attacked in her book will start reaching for their own shovels.

Andrew Halcro
Andrew Halcro.com