Review of Going Rogue

Over 40 people showed up at the Appleton Public Library last night to discuss Sarah Palin's Going Rogue: An American Life. After Brian Farmer and I spoke for about 15 minutes each, there was some very thoughtful commentary and discussion.

I spoke extemporaneously about Palin's book. Here's a summary of what I said:

1. The book's 6 chapters are not a VP campaign memoir.

• Chapter 1, "The Last Frontier," is mostly early biography and Alaska history.

• Chapter 2, "Kitchen-Table Politics," is about Palin's years as a city councilor and then mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

• Chapter 3, "Drill, Baby, Drill" is about Palin's gubernatorial campaign and what she sees as her accomplishments in that office.

• Chapter 4, "Going Rogue," deals with the trials and tribulations of the VP campaign.

• Chapter 5, "The Thumpin'," is about what Palin perceives as unfair press and leftist attacks on her that led to her decision to resign as Alaska governor.

• Chapter 6, "The Way Forward," presents Palin's general political beliefs; what she calls "Commonsense Conservatism.

2. Even though I am mostly critical of Palin and her book, there's much in it that I find appealing.

• As an elected member of the Oshkosh City Council, I find Palin's description of local government political dynamics to be insightful and accurate.

• The section of the book dealing with her discovery that her son would be born with Down's Syndrome is enough to move even the most strident Palin haters to tears.

• I like the fact that Palin writes admiringly about Matthew Scully, a former speechwriter for Bush #43 who has written an excellent book establishing respect for animals as a conservative principle. (Palin says of him: "A political conservative, he is a bunny-hugging vegan and gentle, green soul who I think would throw himself in the path of a semitruck to save a squirrel."). [Note: I interviewed Matthew Scully for Radio Commentary several years ago. That interview can be found here.]

• I like the notion of the "rogue" politician; someone who isn't predictable and doesn't always follow the party line.

3. I believe the purpose of this book was/is to restore Palin's credibility; a credibility badly damaged as a result of the VP campaign.

• She wants the book to help make people comfortable not only in voting for her, but in listening to her as serious voice on national policy issues.

• The Greek philosopher Aristotle (see paragraph 3) said that restoring or establishing credibility is essentially a matter of an audience perceiving a rhetor as intelligent, of good moral character, and of goodwill.
  

4. For four major reasons, I don't believe the book succeeds in raising Palin's credibility.

• First, in the book one finds a pattern of resignation and withdrawal when the heat gets too hot. Resigning as governor is the obvious example, but she also writes about resigning from her position with the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission when she could not get governor Frank Murkowski to act in a way she saw fit. Palin's resignations may or may not have been the proper course of action, but she seems to have difficulty imaging other ways of resolving intense political conflicts. She concludes that to be governor in the face of a mountain of investigations, much of it frivolous, you "either have to be rich or corrupt." Are those really the only choices?

• Second, the book features much petty defensiveness. She complains incessantly about a left bias in the media, and goes to length to take shots at Katie Couric. But her defensive complaints are not only about media; she complains about the way her family was treated by higher ups in the McCain campaign, about being "forced" to wear expensive clothing, and about not being able to deliver a speech on the night of the general election. She even includes a bizarre story about McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt interrupting her during her prep for the debate with Joe Biden to say that the campaign would be flying in a nutritionist (who never arrived) because of a concern that a high protein/not enough carbs diet was leading to some mental lapses. You read these complaints and cannot help but say, "isn't it time to move on from this nonsense?"

• Third, when it comes to political discourse Palin is still mostly stuck on the low road. She does not regret the "palling around with terrorists" remark about Obama, and without a shred of evidence suggests that his performance as president proves that the comment was appropriate. (Low road politics have been her MO outside of the book; politifact.com--a nonpartisan, Pulitzer Prize winning outfit--called her "death panel" assertions the "lie of the year.")

• Fourth, there does seem to be quite a bit of "culture war," red-state posturing in the book. She tells us, for example, that after she resigned from the Alaska Gas Commission and wondered what to do next she thought of a passage from Jeremiah 29: 11-13. Much of that kind of thing can be found in the book; kind of like an attempt to out-Huckabee Mike Huckabee for the red state vote. In fairness to Palin, she's hardly the first politician to pander in a memoir.

5. Has the book made Palin a credible figure outside of a segment of the Republican Party? No.

• In November, during the special election to fill New York's 23rd congressional district seat, Palin overtly endorsed the conservative independent Doug Hoffman over the Republican nominee who she thought too liberal. Bill Owens ended up being the first Democrat elected to represent that part of New York since the mid-19th century.

• Scott Brown's historic upset in the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's former seat in Massachusetts was accomplished without help from Palin. Indeed, the Brown campaign studiously distanced itself from Palin.

6. Can Sarah Palin be elected president in 2012?

• I can envision a scenario where she enters the Republican primaries and battles with Mike Huckabee for the red state conservative vote.

• I think John McCain's former campaign manager Steve Schmidt has the right angle on Palin:

"She is someone who has a passionate base that constitutes millions of Americans. But in the year since the election has ended, she has done nothing to expand her appeal beyond that base into the middle of the electorate, where elections are decided. In fact, were she to be the nominee we could have a catastrophic election."