Going Rogue: Couric interview was a setup by Nicole Wallace

Now that the media types have their advance copies of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue memoir, bits and pieces of the book are beginning to leak out. The first morsels were revealed Tuesday by Mark Halperin. Now Associated Press Writer Richard Pienciak has divulged more details in an AP wire report.

According to Pienciak's reading of Going Rogue, a large chunk of Governor Palin's legal fees came unexpectedly in a bill presented to her by her running mate's campaign:

In the months leading up to her July resignation as Alaska governor, her legal bills had mounted to more than $500,000, fueled mostly by what she called frivolous ethics complaints. What appeared to upset her most, though, was that about $50,000 of the legal bills was her share of the expenses for being vetted for the VP nod, Palin writes.

She said no one had ever informed her that she would have to personally take care of any expenses related to the selection process.

Many Palin supporters have suspected that the Katie Couric interview arranged by the McCain campaign was a setup. Pienciak's story refers to a part of the former governor's book which would tend to confirm that suspicion:

She writes at length about Couric. She says that the idea to meet with Couric came from McCain campaign aide Nicolle Wallace, who told Palin that Couric - also a working mother - liked and admired her. It would be a favor to Couric, too, whom Palin notes had the lowest ratings of the network anchors. Wallace said Couric suffered from low self-esteem. And Palin replied that she almost began to "feel sorry" for Couric.

She alleges that Couric and CBS left out her more "substantive" remarks and settled for "gotcha" moments. She writes that Couric had a "partisan agenda" and a condescending manner. Couric was "badgering," biased and far easier on Couric's Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden.

Going Rogue is scheduled to hit the bookshelves Tuesday, November 17.

Editor's Note: AP initially reported the amount billed to palin by the McCain campaign as $500,000. Now AP has a rewrite of the story out (Without offering an explanation or retraction) in which it is reporting the figure as $50,000.

McCain campaign officials are disputing the claim that they billed Palin. Meanwhile the former governor's spokesperson Meg Stapleton won't comment, saying only that the book is embargoed until its official release date, which is next Tuesday.

So it's unclear just how much AP got wrong about Going Rogue. Did they just screw up on the dollar amount, or is the part of their story about the vetting billing inaccurate? Is the rest of the AP story credible, or were they just "making things up"?

- JP