Jan Whitt on 'Going Rogue: An American Life'

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Jan Whitt, a professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado, has written an essay which examines "the historical context, the literary impact, and the social implications" of Sarah Palin's 2009 memoir Going Rogue: An American Life and "addresses the place of autobiography, memoir, and personal essays in the political arena." It's a fairly substantial treatise, published in Sunday's edition of American Thinker. Here are some excerpts:

Although several of the candidates in the 2008 presidential race published memoirs-including Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama-one of the most provocative narratives was published after the election and seems to provide evidence that its author might again run for political office. Going Rogue reached the top of the nonfiction bestsellers list and sold more copies than even Palin's supporters could have predicted. After an initial print run of 1.5 million copies, HarperCollins announced a second printing of 1 million more. In November 2009, sales of Palin's memoir surpassed I, Alex Cross by James Patterson; Under the Dome by Stephen King; and The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. Although Nielsen BookScan said Going Rogue sold 469,000 during its first week (not the 700,000 that HarperCollins claims), company spokespeople explained that Nielsen BookScan did not include sales at mass market retailers such as Sam's Club and Walmart. "If the 700,000 figure is accurate," Jefferson Barbour writes, "that places Palin's memoir ahead of Living History, the 2003 memoir by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton" ("Sarah Palin's ‘Going Rogue' Hits Number One" n.p.)

Some immediately dismissed the book's success because Palin employed a ghost writer (how much of the memoir was really hers?); others because retailers such as Target and Amazon sold the book at bargain rates; and still others because conservative groups bought advance copies of the book. However, few acknowledge what her fan base understands: Going Rogue provided Christians, conservatives, heterosexual parents, political aficionados, middle-class women, rural Americans, and others an opportunity to see their own lives in print and to celebrate someone who represents them with courage and without apology.

Often ridiculed by others, individuals in some of these groups identify with Palin when she and members of her family are attacked for their religious beliefs, for their emphasis on family, and for their accents and regional phrases. This empathy is but one reason for their belief in her and the stories she tells in Going Rogue. Scott Payne of the Washington Examiner warns:

Each time liberals like Robert Gibbs take a moment to mock the know nothingness of Sarah Palin, they reinforce a stereotype about what it means to be liberal to precisely the voters they have the hardest time reaching: the ones in the middle of the country . . . With each barb they hurl her way, liberals participate in a self-fulfilling prophecy that only serves to reinforce feelings of alienation amongst more rural voters with whom Palin continues to have an overwhelming degree of support. And the more those stereotypes are reinforced in the current national climate-a climate that puts most Americans on the other side of the Obama administration on things like the Arizona immigration law, provides the President with his lowest approval rating amongst independents to date, and economic confidence continuing to sink-the more Palin and her camp come out on the winning side of the national debate. ("Democrats and Sarah Palin" n.p.)

When Going Rogue hit number one, Barbour wrote, "Sarah Palin has been the butt of many jokes since making her debut on the national stage late in 2008, but someone out there must like her" ("Sarah Palin's ‘Going Rogue' Hits Number One"). Evidence that Barbour's calculated understatement is correct may be partially indicated by the record number of Republican and conservative women (they are not always one and the same) now seeking public office. Palin's example and her support for candidates she considers worthy say a great deal about the pink elephant in the room.

(More)

Read Professor Whitt's full discourse on Gov. Palin's first book here.

- JP

'Going Rogue' paperback already in some stores

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Although the official release date of the paperback edition of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue memoir is Tuesday, August 24, a TX4P reader spied several copies on the shelves at a Costco in Washington State. Amazon and a number of other outlets are advertising it as "in stock."

According to publisher HarperCollins, the paperback has new material written by Gov. Palin, which is, we are told, in the form of a new afterword. It is available in standard and large print editions.

- JP

Steven Kates: Can Sarah Palin make them listen?

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Dr. Steven Kates, Senior Lecturer in Economics at RMIT University in Melbourne, addresses the questions, not only of whether Sarah Palin will run for the office of President of the United States, but should she run for the job, in an essay in Quadrant, "the leading general intellectual journal of ideas, literature, poetry and historical and political debate published in Australia." Some excerpts:

The question becomes, if Sarah Palin does actually seek the nomination in 2012, whether she is the right one for the job.

Her book is therefore in many respects an outline of her political past. It is a review of many of the decisions she has made as a sampler of the kind of President she would be. It discusses her philosophical position on a number of questions which will be major matters for decision for a President having to deal with the world as it will be in 2013 and beyond.

[...]

That... she has quoted Thomas Sowell gives me a fair idea of where such ideas may have come from. But it is not that she read such concepts in Sowell that matters (if that is indeed what happened) but that when she did come across them, those were the ideas that stuck and remained. Sowell is one of the most articulate conservative intellectuals of our time... That she would find an affinity with Sowell, understand with perfect clarity what he had written and then condense the points so well, is entirely to her credit. She (as well as he) may be wrong. But these are crucially important ideas that, should current policies fail and new ones be required, may make the difference between prolonging recessionary conditions even further and the ability to recover from what began as a relatively mild recession, however much commotion there may have been at the time.

It is that these ideas resonate and make sense to her that matters. Being President is not being the head of a fact-finding commission. It’s not about being the smartest person in the room. The role is to make decisions in real time about issues that have become boiling hot. What you are looking for is someone whose value system, background capacities and general outlook on the world will keep the community safe in a dangerous and unpredictable world. It is to answer these kinds of questions towards which this book has been directed. Sarah Palin’s aim is to demonstrate that she is just the kind of person in whose hands the American public can safely place its trust.

[...]

Will Sarah Palin be President? Will she be the one to “make them listen”? This we will only know sometime in 2012, possibly not until the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November. Maybe we won’t even know until 2016.

More important, however, is should she be President? Is she up to the job (assuming anyone is)? That is a different matter that may never be resolved unless she finally is, and perhaps not even then. In the meantime, Going Rogue is her early manifesto, written to put her back on a pathway towards this undoubted goal. The book has done exactly that and has done it extraordinarily well in spite of the enormous obstacles that have been thrown in her way. She is nobody’s fool, not to be underestimated by anyone.

You can read the full article by Professor Kates here.

h/t: Real World Libertarian

- JP

Monday Morning Sarahcuda Bites for April 12, 2010

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While the Left just loves Tina Fey's reprise of her Sarah Palin impersonation as guest host of SNL Saturday and can't stop talking about it on Al Gore's internets, real grown ups can see that the old Fey schtick ain't what she used to be. The Hillbuzz boyzz saw it coming before the show even aired:

"The funny thing is, the joke’s on you, Tina. You’re the one who said you’d never play Palin again if your life depended on it. Well, tonight you are playing Palin again apparently. Does your career depend upon it?"

And Big Hollywood says Tina Should have kept her word and kept the character retired, because what were once funny jokes are now simply mean-spirited insults:

"In 2008, SNL was able to affect the Presidential election with provocative original satire; you could debate what was in their messages, but not that the messages were delivered effectively. Now they’re just piling on with dated Palin-is-dumb jokes (such as a winking joke, a writing on hand joke, a death panel joke, a Katie Couric interview joke…). Yawn. Fake Sarah Palin has lost her edge."

We've noticed that the Left seems to go ga-ga over television characters and get more worked up over them than they do about real-life situations. They spent weeks defending the "Family Guy" Palin smear after Gov. Palin mentioned it once and had already moved on. Now the Tina Fey guest shot on SNL is the biggest thing on Planet Leftune for them. It must give them great comfort at a time when Sarah Palin pwned the entire Obama Administration on nuclear strategy.

Boston radio talker Michael Graham proves that "An Angry Progressive’s Picture Is Worth A Thousand 'Angry, Right-Wing' Words" (h/t: Glenn Reynolds).

Over on Planet Ronulus, the Ronulans willingly concede that Sarah Palin "definitely has the largest number of fans" on Facebook, but opine that the 2008 vice presidential candidate has "little appeal among middle of the road type people." Then they claim that this is "not a problem" for Ron Paul. Say what? We must assume Paul's great popularity with middle-of-the-roaders is what accounts for all the Primaries he won in 2008. Oh, wait...

At FiveThirtyEight, where they play with numbers in all sorts of interesting ways, Tom Schaller has calculated the "Borda Count" for the vote-getters in the Saturdays SRLC straw poll. These figures are arrived at by factoring the first-choice and second-choice preferences for each candidate. Here's what Tom came up with:


Check out the Geeks on Caffeine take on SarahPAC's "Take Back the 20" target map iconery. Heh. Speaking of SarahPAC, first quarter disclosure reports for PACs are due this week.

Even at this late date, people are still writing reviews of Gov. Palin's Going Rogue memoir. A brief review by the family-oriented Mourning to Dancing blog is here.

At Undernews, the online report of the Progressive Review, Sam Smith declares that "Liberalism is dead" and suggests a "progressive populist" approach instead:

"Unconvinced voters - from Tea Party members to the apathetic - would be regarded as a market and not a menace. It would be the job of the progressive populist politics to change their minds. This means replacing the MSNBC model of 'aren't they stupid' with what the Quakers called the concept of "reciprocal liberty," i.e. you can't have your freedom unless I have mine. In other words, all sides need to rediscover the idea of tolerance towards those with whom we disagree."

"There is nothing to be gained by simply being the mirror image of the Tea Parties, but a lot to be gained by changing the nature and tone of the debate. There is also absolutely nothing wrong with going after Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, but to declare all their fans terminally ill is the death knell for one's own politics."

Good luck with that, Sam. The radical left, armed as they are with their Alinsky Rules, control all of the territory to the left of center, and they simply won't allow cooler heads to prevail. They're determined to go over the cliff, and anyone who doesn't want to get on board that bus will get thrown under it.

- JP

"Going Rogue" sold over 2.6 million copies in 2009

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Though it didn't hit the book shelves until the middle of November, Sarah Palin's Going Rogue memoir was the top-selling hard cover non-fiction book of 2009, according to Publishers Weekly:

In nonfiction, can it be that Dick Morris almost outsold Chesley Sullenberger? (Yes.) And did Sarah Palin really outsell Ted Kennedy 3-1? You betcha.

[...]

Harper's Going Rogue and Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, by Steve Harvey, copped the top two spots in nonfiction, followed by a couple of titles from S&S's Threshold imprint—Glenn Beck's and Mark R. Levin's.

What is also true and not to be overlooked is that all the hardcover books in these lists were successes. To sell a hundred thousand copies (the cutoff for this list) is to generate near a million dollars for a publisher—no small feat, especially in these times.

By PW's count, Gov. Palin's book sold 2,674,684 copies in just the last six weeks of 2009:

Hardcover Nonfiction Sales, 2009

1. Going Rogue: An American Life. Sarah Palin. Harper (2,674,684).
2. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment. Steve Harvey. Harper (1,735,219).
3. *Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government. Glenn Beck. Threshold.
4. *Liberty & Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. Mark R. Levin..
5. True Compass: A Memoir. Edward M. Kennedy. Twelve (870,402).

- JP

Quote of the Day (March 1, 2010)

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SmokingJoe:

"While Sarah Palin’s book shot to # 1 at Amazon on pre-orders alone, on the same day that it was available for pre-orders (a good 2 months before it was released), Mitt Romney's book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, is still stuck at # 245 in the Amazon sales rankings, with only one day to go before release tomorrow."

- JP

Big crowd lined up for Palin book signing in Daytona Beach

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One thousand people lined up in front of a Daytona Beach bookstore Monday hopping to get a chance to meet Sarah Palin and get their copies of her Going Rogue memoir signied:

Palin fans waited for their wristbands to gain access to the signing on Friday. Those who show up without wristbands will be turned away.

"Going Rogue" has been on the New York Times best-sellers list for 11 weeks in a row.

Palin will also speak at an event at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach Monday night.

The former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, also drew crowds everywhere she went while she attended the Daytona 500 Sunday.

- JP

Sarah Palin Book Signing Saturday in Daytona Beach

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Sarah Palin must have figured that she would have too much time on her hands this weekend in Florida. Even though she's attending the Daytona 500 race Sunday and speaking to the Daytona Beach Area Chamber of Commerce Monday, she's added a third event in the area -- a book signing -- to her calendar for Saturday.

The governor will sign copies of her Going Rogue memoir at the Volusia Mall Books-A-Million store from 7PM to 10PM the night of February 13th.

The bookseller has announced the following event guidelines:

1. Limited number of wristbands will be distributed beginning at 9 a.m. on Friday, 2/12 at the Volusia Mall Books-A-Million. Customers can line up outside the street entrance of Books-A-Million.
   
2. One wristband per person. Children under the age of 10 do not need a wristband.
   
3. Max. 2 copies of Going Rogue per wristband will be signed with no personalization.
   
4. Memorabilia or additional items cannot be signed.
   
5. Photos/video of any kind will not be allowed in the signing area.
   
6. Please leave large bags and backpacks at home or in your car. You will be required to hand over cell phones, cameras and bags before reaching the signing table. Only copies of Going Rogue will be allowed in the signing area.
   
7. Books-A-Million will close at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday and only those customers with wristbands will be allowed entrance.

For More information and for media types to request a spot on the press list, contact from Jane Hoerner at 205-909-3512 or hoernerj@booksamillion.com.

h/t: Ron Devito

- JP

The Latest Nothingburger from the Anti-Palin Left

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Here we go again. ABC News, after going over SarahPAC's FEC disclosure reports with a fine-tooth comb, figured that there was a story in the details:

Sarah Palin has been using her political action committee to buy up thousands of copies of her book, "Going Rogue," in order to mail copies of the memoir to her donors, newly filed campaign records show.

The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate had her political organization spend more than $63,000 on what her reports describe as "books for fundraising donor fulfillment." The payments went to Harper Collins, her publisher, and in some instances to HSP Direct, a Virginia-based direct mail fundraising firm that serves a number of well-known conservative politicians and pundits.

Yes, SarahPAC, to encourage donations, for a time was offering free, autographed copies of her book for a donation of $100. No big deal, but you wouldn't know from the hysterical rantings on the anti-Palin hate blogs of the moonbat-o-sphere. The Leftist bloggers, who clutch at every straw they can find to fashion their straw men, now claim that Sarah Palin's PAC was buying copies of her book to drive the sales numbers up. They must have SarahPAC confused with labor unions, which are notorious for buying large lots of books written by "progressive" pols. 

Ed Morrissey strikes a match and puts it to that straw man:

Um … so what? Palin isn’t a candidate for office (yet), and since each book retails for $13.50 on Amazon, that amounts to less than 4700 books — hardly an effort to pull a Dianetics-like dodge and artificially keeping it on bestseller lists. Making the book an incentive for larger donations is not only a no-brainer, it’s just about SOP with plenty of other politicians as well..

Even if SarahPAC had been able to buy the books at half that price, we would still be talking about less than ten thousand copies -- a drop in the bucket -- of a book that has sold millions of copies.

As Freeper kristann reminds us, the DNC did the same thing with Hillary Clinton's book in 2004:

Newsmax reported in early 2004 about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party giving away copies of Living History to donors. There was no controversy raised by the media back then like they are trying to do with Palin:

The Democratic National Committee is "giving away" copies of Sen. Hillary Clinton's book "Living History" to any contributor who ponies up $29.95 per month till Election Day - a move that raises questions about whether the party has made bulk purchases of Clinton's book.

SNIP

"As a Member of Presidential Partners," DNC chief Terry McAuliffe promises in the Web site's message, "you will receive: A copy of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book, Living History. The first 500 books will be personally signed by Senator Clinton!"

SNIP

The DNC's Hillary book offer coincides with the senator's own attempt to boost book sales through her political action committee, HILLPAC.

On HILLPAC's Web site, "FriendsofHillary.com," potential donors are offered "your own personalized copy of this historic book" in exchange for "making a contribution to Friends of Hillary."

SNIP

HILLPAC says the senator does not collect royalties on any books sold through FriendsofHillary.

The media (ABC News, National Journal, Politics Daily, Seattle Post Intelligencer, NY Daily News, MSNBC, Media Bistro, and Salon) are going potty over Sarah Palin using her book as an incentive for donations to her PAC. A search of news sites shows that as of this writing none of the outlets attacking Palin are reporting she is only following in the footsteps of Hillary Clinton.

Well, of course not! After all, they have a double standard to uphold...

Capt. Ed sums it up nicely:

The big news here is that Palin’s PAC had at least 4600 donors in the fourth quarter who gave enough money to warrant the incentive gift. Otherwise, this is a big nothingburger.

More from Jerry Wilson at Goldfish & Clowns here.

- JP

Reloading: The American Spectator reviews 'Rogue'

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Daniel Oliver reviews Going Rogue in the February issue of The American Spectator. Here are a few choice excerpts:

Gov. Palin believes in God. So did the Founding Fathers, though not necessarily in precisely the way Gov. Palin does. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “God who gave us life gave us liberty.” And also: “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?” The U.S. has strayed far from that belief, or at least from the ability to express that belief in public, in no small part because of Supreme Court rulings so beloved by the liberal United Nations-hugging big-government socialist fascist gangster capitalist atheist God-hating running dogs. Gov. Palin’s belief in God is palpable—palpable being the operative word because periodically she holds her children’s hands and prays.

[...]

Why is a belief in God important? Because, as Chesterton is said to have expressed it, ”When men stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.” Including progress (by which they mean the perfectibility of man), the wisdom of the state, and the need for big government (as the means by which the wise state, guided by a multiplicity of advisers who went to Harvard and Yale, can bring about the perfection of man). Palin: “The role of government is not to perfect us, but to protect us.”

Protecting us is important for obvious reasons. And providing for the common defense is in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, along with establishing justice and ensuring domestic tranquility. Having a strong defense does not necessarily mean supporting the war in either Iraq or Afghanistan. But it does mean having a defense budget large enough to make our enemies quake. Palin: “America must remain the strongest nation in the world in order to remain free.” At the peak of the Reagan rearming in 1986 our expenditures on defense were 6.2 percent of GDP. They are now 4.8 percent, and are projected to go down to 3 percent by 2019. Where is Gov. Palin (the proud mother of a son who went off to serve his country in Iraq) when we need her?

The answer, of course, is that she's reloading...

- JP

Peter Ferrara finds brilliance in 'Going Rogue'

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In his Political Hay column at The American Spectator, Peter Ferrara waxes rhapsodic about Going Rogue:

I am angry. I am angry that no one, not even conservatives, told me what a brilliant book this is, before I read it for myself. Brilliant in a quintessentially Sarah Palin way, showing through doing and being her genuine self, rather than through academic argument, exactly the way to communicate to the every day person.

I don't know that she actually planned it this way. But what is so brilliant about the book is that she just tells her fascinating and endearing personal life story, from childhood to 2009, in great personal and reflective detail. In the process, you come to know exactly who she is, exactly what she believes, and why, while she convincingly, thoroughly, politely eviscerates her critics, from left to right.

After reading the book, the word that will stick in your mind is genuine, which is jarring in a modern, hip, culture, that Rush Limbaugh is accurately calling "the universe of lies." Sarah Palin in this book transparently speaks from the heart, and tells us who she is, more than willing to let the chips fall where they may. And where they fall is to provide a firm foundation for a generation of national political leadership.

Ferrara, who served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, states that Sarah Palin "is through and through a female Reagan" and says he found more wisdom in this book than he did at Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He goes on to predict that she will become president in 2021, after having first served as Secretary of Energy and perhaps also in the U.S. Senate.

Read the full Ferrara column at The American Spectator.

- JP

Celebrate Reading with Sarah Palin in Houston April 22

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Sarah Palin will comment on her life and read from her memoir Going Rogue as part of the program for the 2010 Celebration of Reading event, sponsored by the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, April 22 at Houston's Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.

The 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate will join authors A.J. Jacobs (The Year of Living Biblically), Mary Karr (The Liar's Club), Greg Kincaid (A Dog Named Christmas) and Kathryn Stockett (The Help). Celebration of Reading regularly packs the theaters and brings in about $2 million a year to former First Lady Barbara Bush's foundation.

Tickets start at $150 per person and range up to $5,000 to reserve a table for eight. Dial 713-942-1209 or email ceickenroht@empowerevents.com for ticket information. The Celebration of Reading webpage is here, and the foundation's home page is here. The PDF flyer for the event is here.

h/t: The Sarah Palin Blog

- JP

Going Rogue: An American Book Club

- by Lisa Graas
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April-Liesel Binapri of Pro-Sarah will be having a series of discussions regarding Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue: An American Life, beginning today at 9pm Eastern. Panel members include Eddie Burke, Adrienne Ross, Irma Munoz, Karen Allen, Mary Baker, Elicia Afton, Martha Cano, Kristina Lazzaro, Ron Devito, Chasity Taylor, and Cheri Douglas. Click the image for a larger version showing more information and visit ProSarah for details.


- Lisa

Lisa Graas is editor of the Palin Twibe Blog and several other websites. She is a regular contributor to Texas for Sarah Palin.

A Review of 'Going Rogue' at Anti-Republican Culture

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At Colorado blog Anti-Republican Culture, we found Howard Towt's book review of Gov. Palin's Going Rogue. Excerpts:

"In the space of just over two months, Governor Palin becomes a significant presence on our political landscape. It’s hard to comprehend that so much changed in such a short period of time."

"What exactly changed? We now have a strong political figure in our midst that carries a message of 'Country First.' Sarah Palin cherishes the principles of our founding fathers and puts the question before us, 'Are these principles worth keeping?'"

[...]

"There is an awakening of sorts going on in our country right now. Sarah Palin has shown that her politics appeal to this type of sentiment. The question is whether the emotions she captured in Alaska will extend into our 'Lower 48.'"

"I’m betting on the Arctic Fox."

Your can read the full review here.

- JP

American Girl Reviews 'Going Rogue'

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American Girl has a two-post review of Going Rogue. As usual, we have excerpts... 

Plain Palin Talk is a commentary on Sarah Palin's language in her memoir:

"God, how we've all longed for someone whose talk is blunt and unapologetic! My head literally aches and my spirits plunge when I listen to the non-answers, the confusion, the hesitance, of people who should be protecting me by taking on the most dangerous, determined, hate-filled, immoral subhumans on the planet. Mitt Romney, are you kidding? Could that man be trusted to pick up the phone?"

Plain Palin Action looks at Gov. Palin's ideas and deeds:

"It's sickening to read of what became of [Palin's] common sense and energy in the presidential campaign. She wanted to talk of Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, to call out the biased press, to overthrow the paradigm of 'the left's expert use of the weapons of political warfare and the right's high-minded but ineffective approach.' Almost every initiative was checked by the campaign's architects, every remark that came from the heart quashed, every battle she wanted to fight ruled out. I can't see her ever playing second fiddle like that again."

- JP

The Culture Warrior Reviews Going Rogue

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Here are a couple of excerpts from a review of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue at Confessions of a Culture Warrior:

"I loved the book, plain and simple. The candid tone used to describe her life in Alaska, her five pregnancies, and her relationship with her husband Todd was very refreshing."

[...]

"Also, that same sense of realism that Governor Palin exuded during the campaign was in each and every page. The book didn't appear ghostwritten to me, as it simply didn't SOUND as though a professional writer had done the writing. There were too many 'regular folks' sayings. Not to mention that if it WAS ghostwritten, that ghostwriter seemed to have had some kind of infatuation with Todd Palin."

Read the complete book review here.

- JP

Professor Alan Snyder reviews 'Going Rogue'

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Alan Snyder is a Professor of History and Chair of the Department of Historical, Legal, and Leadership Studies at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida. As the author of three books, Dr. Snyder is well qualified to review Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. This he has done in a three-part book review, each section of which is a post on his blog, Pondering Principles. Here is an excerpt from each part of his review:

Part I - The Palin Character:

"This is a deeply personal account. She chose to make this autobiography as true to her personality as possible. I detect no whiff of pseudo-sophistication. So I am pleased by the genuineness of the writing style. She acknowledges receiving professional help getting it into its final form, but she says she did most of the writing. I believe her simply because the style reflects the person she seems to be in public. It would be improbable for a ghost writer to copy her way of speaking and thinking so completely."

Part II - Politics of Personal Destruction:

"Some reports on Palin’s book made it seem as if she spent the majority of the time complaining about the treatment she received from the press, the Democrats, and operatives within the McCain campaign. In fact, all she did was chronicle what actually took place during the campaign and afterwards. She points to actions that she considers unfair, foolish, and indefensible, yet she doesn’t turn it into a diatribe against her opponents. She is analytical about it, not resentful."

Part III - The Palin Political Philosophy:

"With her stalwart prolife views and Christian moral precepts, her principled position on the free market, her pro-military, pro-strong-America stance, and her ability to communicate these concepts, generating enthusiasm among the grassroots conservative movement, Sarah Palin is probably the first politician since Ronald Reagan who has the potential to unite all factions of conservatism."

That last point is one that we're made repeatedly here on Texas for Sarah Palin because its importance cannot be overstated. Prof. Snyder has written one of the best reviews we've yet read of Going Rogue. Highly recommended reading.

- JP

John P. Hanlon Reviews 'Going Rogue'

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John P. Hanlon, the Operations Manager for Townhall.com, recently reviewed Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. His review was published on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government website. Here is an excerpt:

"Many liberals and some conservatives have attacked who Palin is and her experience. Many members of the media have joined in and they have tried to tell viewers what Sarah Palin stands for. Instead of listening to and believing such people, I decided to read Palin’s book myself to find out who she really is and if the media hype about the book was true."

The media hype suggested that Palin’s book focused on her campaign to be vice president. Some analysts seemed to believe that Palin wrote the book to justify her 'going rogue' last year and to attack people from the campaign she felt had not served the campaign well. However, after finishing the book recently, I realized that the book is not a vengeful account of what transpired but Palin’s own accounting of her public life, including her bid to become the first female vice president of the United States.

Although Hanlon says that he doesn't share all of Sarah Palin's views, the reviewer admits that as a reader, he "thoroughly enjoyed" the former governor's book.

The full review is at BigGovernment.com.

- JP

A Ghostwriter Reviews Sarah Palin's 'Going Rogue'

*
Clayton Cramer, an author who has some experience as a professional ghostwriter, has a review of Going Rogue up at Pajamas Media and found, to his surprise, that while Lynn Vincent may have helped her with the memoir, Sarah Palin did indeed write it:

"In a few places, I noticed sentences with 'I' instead of 'me' for the direct object — a mistake that a professional writer wouldn’t make. There is also a bit more use of 'I'... than a professional writer might use, even in an autobiography. There are also quite a few places where her tangents in telling her story mark this as a first book; they don’t show the organization that I would expect from a professional."

Nevertheless, Cramer says, Gov. Palin wrote a good book her, especially for a first effort:

"Going Rogue is well written, and it reads quickly and easily. Unlike some other 'first books'" that I have read (and many books by academics), I almost never found myself going back over a sentence to figure out her meaning. Palin’s B.A. from the University of Idaho is in journalism and she worked as a journalist for a while." 

The reviewer also found some more surprises between the covers of Going Rogue:

"She makes a point of telling you that her administration set a goal of achieving 50% of Alaska’s energy from renewable resources by 2025. Throughout the book, she emphasizes the importance of both developing resources and protecting the environment."

What was behind the McCain campaign's problems was yet another surprise for Cramer as he read the memoir. He had assumed that the issues between the vice presidential candidate and campaign operatives were rooted in ideology. Instead, he concludes that McCain's people were merely incompetent and were worried about their prospects of getting hired to work on future campaigns. There was, however, at least one circumstance where ideology was at work:

"It appears that a left-wing mole had been planted in Palin’s campaign, a friend of Couric’s, who contributed to this disaster."

That would be Nicole Wallace, a friend of Couric's from Wallace's stint at CBS, although Cramer doesn't mention her name.

The reviewer concludes that although Sarah Palin wasn't as well-qualified as he would prefer a presidential or even vice presidential candidate to be, she still had more executive experience in government than Obama, Biden and even McCain. We agree with his point that "many years in Congress are no substitute for executive experience."

Cramer adds that he would prefer a candidate for one of the top two jobs in the federal government who is more of an intellectual than is Palin. However he acknowledges that...

"... the incredibly ignorant goofs by President Obama (there is no 'Austrian' language, Emperor Hirohito did not sign the surrender with General MacArthur, the United States did not invent the automobile) show that this isn’t a job requirement."

Read the complete book review at Pajamas Media.

- JP

Going Rogue is #3 in SF Bay Area

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Sarah Palin's Going Rogue is the number three bestseller in the very liberal Bay Area. All the more impressive, says Weasel Zippers, because many bookstores in the area refuse to stock it.

Meanwhile, millions of liberals across the nation have purchased Gov. Palin's book. We know this because the book has sold millions of copies, and Joy Behar says that Sarah Palin’s "base doesn’t even read." And "smart" liberals like Joy are never wrong... are they?

- JP