A conservative, a liberal and a batshitcrazy review of Sarah Palin's autobiography "Going Rogue"

THE CONSERVATIVE:

Dan Fagan, The Alaska Standard:

"Sarah Palin: A Dark Soul"

UPDATE: For reasons I don't know, Dan Fagan has deleted his article.

However, I had saved the article and the comments. They can be downloaded HERE.

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I have read some excerpts from the book and it is clearly a work of vengeance, revenge, and pure meanness. Palin comes across as the rotten on the inside, faultfinding, petty teenage girl we all hated in high school. If you’ve seen the movie “Heathers” or “Mean Girls” you know what I am talking about. Palin, when writing Rogue, set herself on a course of smallness, triviality, quibbling, sophistry nothingness, and worthlessness.

From the excerpts I’ve read, it is hard to draw any other conclusion than Sarah Palin is small in stature, character, and integrity. Yes I do believe Sarah Palin has a dark soul. A soul obsessed with her image. A soul focused on hurting others. Sarah Palin’s book reveals her as someone unwilling, unable, incapable of living a life of forgiveness. She is a grudge carrier. Settling scores drive her and she is hell bent on revenge, payback, getting even.

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And you thought Palin laughing at Bob Lester’s vicious attacks on Lyda Green was an aberration. Plain and simple Sarah Palin wants to hurt those she has unforgivness in her heart toward, and she wants to hurt them badly.

Did you see the Oprah interview when she asked Palin about Levi? Palin answered by saying she would not talk about on him on national TV. She then immediately proceeds to slam Levi over and over calling him a porn star and making fun of his new ambition to be a movie actor. It was overwhelming evidence Palin cannot help herself. She has no self-control when it comes to letting things go. She must settle the score. She must. She Will!

Revenge has become the work and calling of her life. Maybe it always has been. It’s clearly what drives her now. Her cutthroat attacks on others will be her downfall. Her inability to control her desire to hurt those who hurt her will end up in the end discrediting her as a leader, as a person.

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THE LIBERAL:

Thomas Frank, Wall Street Journal (yes, he is a liberal columnist!):

"The Persecution of Sarah Palin"

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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.

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But the mean things people say and do during her vice presidential run—these are not to be taken in the same spirit. These are to be recalled and deplored, one by one, as if from a master list Ms. Palin has been keeping all this time. She reminds us that someone hacked her email, that she got a prank phone call, and that she once saw someone wearing an insulting T-shirt in Philadelphia.

She claims that what ruined her famous interview with wily CBS News personality Katie Couric was the latter’s “condescension,” which caused Ms. Palin to bungle questions like the one in which she was asked to name her favorite newspaper. And she introduces us to Steve Schmidt, the Republican campaign strategist who is the book’s No. 1 bad guy—almost alone among the book’s characters, he is always referred to by his last name—and who, as Ms. Palin tells it, once implied to an aide that “if there were any more leaks critical of anybody in the handling of Sarah Palin, then a lot more negative stuff would be said about Sarah Palin.”

And, lo and behold, there is. Much more. All of it neatly catalogued, bemoaned, and for sale.

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But Ms. Palin’s life is meant to be an inspiration. Maybe I should follow her example. The opinion-page equivalent of the Palinesque style is easy enough to imagine: I would use this space to recite the indignities the world forced on me over the course of the week—an effete-looking young person ignored me the other day—plus glimpses of heartland authenticity—I sure do like pot roast—before concluding, darkly, that the reason I suffer is because I am such a sterling American.

I can’t wait to get started.

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THE BATSHITCRAZY:

John Ziegler, www.mediaite.com

"John Ziegler’s Review of Going Rogue"

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With that said, I was simply blown away by Going Rogue on almost every level. For many reasons, this is by far the best book and greatest literary achievement by a political figure in my lifetime.

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So, what do we learn from Going Rogue? Tons. Lots more than the incredibly (though not surprisingly) biased media coverage of the book’s release would have you believe.

Among other things, we discover that Sarah Palin has a ridiculously good memory. People who know me say that I have an amazing ability to recall events and I have written two books, but I was blown away by the level of detail in this project, which encompasses her entire life. Since the timing of Going Rogue did not allow for massive amounts of time and resources to be put into research it had to all be put together — in incredibly short order — by Palin’s own memory and notes. The notion that numerous “news” outlets thirsting to find inaccuracies have yet to find one of major significance (no, a disagreement over the definition of “vetting” does not count) may to be the greatest testament to the book’s remarkable credibility.

As impressive as the details of the storytelling are, the real strength of Going Rogue is its brutal honesty. Quite simply, there has never been a memoir by someone with potential Presidential viability that has been nearly as open about what has really happened in his or her life and career. And I am not just referring here to Palin pulling no punches and naming names as to who did right and wrong by her and the campaign. I am also referencing the many times where Palin reveals episodes and intimate thoughts and feelings that she knows do not necessarily put her in the most positive light. Her candor goes way beyond typical political self-deprecation and into the realm of instructive human introspection, the type of which can only come from someone incredibly courageous, grounded, and self-aware.

Going Rogue is actually several books in one. It is a compelling biography, a gripping campaign tell-all, an expose on the sad state of our news media, a substantive outline of a political philosophy and even a comprehensive refutation of juicy tabloid rumors (Andrew Sullivan, among others, will have a lot of explaining to do). There are even plenty of touching, humorous (I laughed out loud when she describes Joe Biden just before their debate), and insightful moments in the book.



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