Posted on January 2, 2010 - by Hubba

Book Review: Going Rogue by Sarah Palin

I have begun my wintertime reading schedule. Actually my wintertime over-reading schedule. At least this year I’m not reading submarine thrillers.

For Christmas, someone got someone else Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue, and now I’m reading it.

When Mrs. Palin was chosen as vice-presidential candidate, I was as ignorant of her as everyone else in the Lower 48. I never became a fanatical Sarah Palin supporter, but I did admire what the media told us she had done, and I really couldn’t understand why the media didn’t. From what I heard, she was a strong-willed, almost Machiavellian woman who had helped Alaska grow and prosper. Of course, a person like that will make enemies, but I couldn’t understand why the rest of America, who idolizes the “man-eating” woman, turned on her so viciously. I also didn’t think she would be one bit worse than anyone else on the presidential ticket. (And for what it’s worth, I have been proven right.)

And then we got to meet her in her own words, and it wasn’t pretty. I never knew how much of her bad impression was due to editing of footage, but there were enough gaffes, faux pas, stumbles, and incoherent ramblings that it couldn’t have all been Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson’s fault. And the media kidney punch session continued.

I laughed at every one of Tina Fey’s Palin appearances on SNL, even though I thought several were in bad taste ( as my hero GK Chesterton says, “Funny is the opposite of not funny, and of nothing else.”) And I continued to wonder at the media’s incessant attack on this ideal of feminism, even if she wasn’t a mainline feminist.

Her resignation from the governorship of Alaska left me feeling like an acquaintance I admired had been caught cheating on her spouse or something.

The point is, I wanted to know more about her, and this book showed up.

I haven’t finished it yet, and although I will, I don’t need to. I see no ghost-writer credits, but it’s clear that Sarah Palin, or perhaps more cleverly, the persona we met during the election, wrote this book. It’s all here; “soccer mom,” “maverick,” “politics as usual,” “good ol’ boys,” “gosh darn it,” “Toby Keith,” and “snowmachine.” (I don’t mean to argue with an Alaskan, but it’s snowmobile.)

And it displays no intelligence, no analysis, no wit, and no realism. I really hate to say this, but it’s Chicken Soup for the Political Soccer Mom’s Soul.

There are no grammatical errors or errors of syntax, no misspellings and the paragraphs and chapters all line up nicely. It’s an easy read, too easy, like a glossy happy sixth grade textbook. I have read Civil War era “Lost Cause” treatises that were more realistic than this. It’s “rah rah go Alaska/America” with pedantic descriptons of Alaskan scenery, a few brief gushing sentences on Alaskan historical figures (William Seward,) and the most generic of quotes scattered here and there. For nuts on the fruitcake, we get the occasional unfunny soccer mom joke, not as in offensive, as in simply not funny.

Although I never once remember hearing during the election that Todd Palin was Native, here she beats us over the head with her igloo (I’m sorry, that was borderline racist I know; the traditional Yupik, we learn, don’t live in igloos anyway, but in sod covered underground houses with an unpronounceable name.) I’m not saying Mr. Palin isn’t Native or a good guy, but I’m always suspicious of people making a lot of hay out of their “Native Connection.”

It’s the most politically correct, shiny, happy, “brainless” thing I’ve ever read. I put “brainless” in quotation marks because it came from a very ordinary American mind, not that of an excellent author, or an insightful person, or a wit, just an everyday, ordinary, garden variety soccer mom.

Maybe that’s the whole point, and maybe that’s what this country needs; the sort of person who could be a manager at TGI Friday’s, who would post inspirational messages on the bulletin board like “Your Attitude Determines Your Altitude.” But man am I dissapointed. If there’s another Sarah Palin in there, please come forward.

If you find this book lying around somewhere, give it a try. Like the election, you can’t do worse.  Also, if you really like this book, may I recommend Lawrence Welk’s My America, Your America.