Defending Palin's Book For a Nanosecond

Make no mistake, my main response to Sarah Palin's book is teeth-gnashing, because 1) she lies and never admits it. And her death-penalty lie mattered. And 2) she never acknowledges her debt to feminism. But here is a fair point in defense of the book as a memoir, from Ann Althouse responding to Rod Dreher's review on NPR:

She chose to write a personal memoir: What life feels like for Sarah Palin. So it's her "Dreams From My Father." The book Dreher aches for would be her "Audacity of Hope."

 

Tags: Ann Althouse, going rogue, rod dreher, sarah palin's book

Emily Bazelon is a founding editor of Double X, and a writer and editor at Slate.

Comments

but then Palin infected Oprah with quitterism!

By: patresponse | Thu, 11/19/2009 - 22:40

So much for WetStone's claim that the "Oprah worshippers" owe Palin one...

Comments on DoubleX

By: Ankhorite | Thu, 11/19/2009 - 02:52

For heaven's sake, XX, give us a way to report spam, okay?

Like the loooong "juicy couture" spam which appears right beneath this post!

One Positive of Palin's Book........

By: WetStone | Wed, 11/18/2009 - 17:31

Even though Sarah Palin has not acknowledge her supposed "debt to feminism" she did do a service to all of the Oprah worshipers by giving "The Oprah Winfrey Show" the best rating it has had in two years. Gee, maybe she should bring Levi Johnston on to the show next to help with the character assassination of Palin.

Chronologically inaccurate

By: patresponse | Wed, 11/18/2009 - 17:07

Althouse's comparison between Going Rogue and Dreams from My Father might make sense if Obama had published Dreams from My Father in 2005 (which is apparently what she believes). In actuality, it was published 10 years earlier, before Obama had even run for the Illinois State Senate. It was a personal memoir that was commissioned by a small publisher after Obama received publicity for becoming the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Had it been about policy prescriptions, it would have failed in what the publisher wanted and probably never been published.

In contrast, Palin is already one of the most well-known political figures in America, possibly even the world. She is known *only* because of her work in politics. She received a multi-million dollar advance not because she had a compelling personal story about her family and growing up (as Obama did), but because she is probably the most polarizing politician in America today. Nor did Palin constrain her book to the normal topics of memoir: If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap. She does get into politics, but at a superficial level of taking potshots at Obama and other Democratic politicians, rather than seriously putting forward an alternative.