Four months after her early departure as Alaska's governor, a year after the end of her vice presidential bid as John McCain's running mate for the White House, and six months after signing a book deal with Harper Collins, Palin's book is out. She appeared on Oprah to kick off her book tour, and sales were brisk before she sat in Oprah's coveted chair. "Going Rogue: An American Life" is on the bestseller lists at Barnes and Noble and Amazon, which is selling the $29 book for $9 to compete with Wal-Mart's bottom-price bestseller deals. (No wonder advance sales are doing so well!)
Book reviewers and the AP have gotten advance copies of the book, so as we wait to dive into the 432-page, no-index read ourselves, let's take a look at some of the early reviews:
* Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times calls the book an "erratic new memoir" with a score to settle, not with Democrats, liberals, or the media, but with the McCain campaign. Specifically, with some of the campaign's leaders, including chief strategist Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, the communications aide who was instrumental in setting up those unfortunate interviews with Katie Couric.
* Rush Limbaugh calls it "one of the most substantive policy books I've ever read." Limbaugh is interviewing Palin Tuesday, the day her book is released, and he said in anticipation of their chat: "This woman, Governor Palin, clearly is jazzed by policy, particularly environmental policy and energy policy, as well as taxes and so forth."
* The AP says Palin has gone rogue with some facts in her memoir, from her contention that she approached all travel on Alaska's dime frugally to her opposition to taxpayer-financed bailouts, for which she is critical of President Barack Obama. "Palin is blurring the lines between Obama's stimulus plan--a $787 billion package of tax cuts, state aid, social programs and government contracts--and the federal bailout that Republican presidential candidate John McCain voted for and President George W. Bush signed," the AP notes. The piece concludes: " 'Going Rogue' has all the characteristics of a pre-campaign manifesto, the requisite autobiography of the future candidate."
Sarah Palin on The Oprah Winfrey Show
She had plenty to say about Katie Couric and all of her badgering. As for that famously unanswered question about what newspapers and magazines she reads, the reason she didn't answer it with names of specific periodicals was because she was miffed.
"To me it was in the context of, 'Do you read?' I rolled my eyes and was annoyed with the question....I thought she was asking about this Neanderthal tribe up there in Alaska." She also intimated she was not happy to see Katie and her cameras when she came off of a campaign stop after greeting supporters. "There's the perky one with the microphone....," she said disparagingly. " She said she felt misled by the interview, which she was told would be a "lighthearted" chat between two working moms. Insert red flag here: It sure seems that an interview with any anchor of a major news -- or cable, for that matter -- network would be reason to bring your most informed A-game if you're running for the second highest office in the land. Still, she conceded to Oprah: "If people only know me from that interview, I don't blame people for thinking I was not qualified, that I was ill prepared."
She told Oprah she thought the "D" she got in a college class would be the biggest controversy of her life to be aired in the campaign. Really? To which Oprah said: "What's interesting to me is I would have thought you would have been concerned about them (the campaign) finding out about Bristol's pregnancy." Palin said the campaign vetters had learned of her daughter's pregnancy before she told the campaign, and that the way they handled delivering the news to the country was not the way she would have liked to handle it. The Palins weren't, it turns out, all "giddy, happy to be grandparents," and an opportunity to talk honestly about teenage pregnancy was missed, she said.
Despite the awkward hello hug on stage (it didn't look as if Oprah had planned to hug the former VP candidate), it was all pretty pleasant. Oprah let Sarah have her say, giving her the lighthearted interview she wished she had with Couric. It was a smooth start to her media tour, which, although Palin said running for president in 2012 is "not on her radar," sure has the feel of the start of a campaign. For what, we'll see.
