Going Rogue

Palin, Sarah.  Going Rogue: An American Life.  New York: HarperCollins, 2009.

I told reporters what I still believe today: government experience doesn’t necessarily count for much.

- Sarah Palin in Going Rogue

*~*~*

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin exploded onto the national political scene in August of 2008 when Senator John McCain selected her as his running mate on the Republican ticket.  She was pretty, folksy, and, importantly, a woman.   Yet she was also no stranger to controversy, as her pregnant teenage daughter and penchant for inventing words and speaking in nonsensical non-sentences kept the McCain campaign on the defensive.  Going Rogue is Palin’s attempt to set the record straight, to explain her career, the 2008 campaign, and her political vision for the future in her own words (or her ghost writer’s) rather than in soundbites edited to tarnish her image by what she deems the liberal mainstream media.

The writing is actually quite engaging.  A ghost writer’s more eloquent constructions dominate the text — “We must abandon the false dichotomy that says you can’t be pro-environment and pro-development” — but there are enough unmistakable Palinisms to evidence that this is her book — “we took our broke butts down to the Palmer Courthouse and lassoed a magistrate to pronounce us man and wife.”  And, yes, she even humors readers with a single use of “mavericky.” 

I found the earlier chapters — more biographical, less political — easier to stomach.  Born in Sandpoint, Idaho, Palin and her family relocated to Alaska when Palin was a child.  Once in the largest state in the union, in which travel by small plane is often more convenient than driving, in which hunting for survival remains an important part of life in remote villages, Palin excelled in high school basketball, found her faith, and met her husband, Todd.  After attending college in Hawaii and receiving a degree in journalism from the University of Idaho, Palin returned to Alaska to be a wife, mother, fisherman and part-time sports anchor.

Palin’s political ambitions started small.  She was elected to the Wasilla city council and was later elected mayor.  During her tenure in Wasilla government, Palin consistently advocated limited government intervention in the lives of private citizens.  She supported sales taxes rather than property taxes, thus taxing consumption rather than ownership, advocated voluntary annexation of neighborhoods into the city, and kept the city’s budget in check.  After unsuccessfully running for lieutenant governor, she was appointed commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, at which point she witnessed the abuses — bribery, unresolved conflicts of interest between government officials and oil companies — occurring within her own party.  As numerous Alaska Republicans came under federal indictment, Palin was elected governor in 2006.  She vowed to hold her administration to ethical standards previous administrations had ignored, thus raising the ire of her own party and later earning her the title of maverick.

Although Palin’s account of her time in Alaska politics is one-sided, I believe she was good for her state.  Federal indictments prove that corruption within her predecessor’s administration and within the state legislature was rampant, and people she knew in those days who now speak out against her include incompetent staffers she fired and a sleazy ex-brother-in-law.  She clearly understands her state’s history, geography, culture, natural resource potential and independent spirit — which is exactly why she should stay there.

The nationalized Palin, the vice presidential candidate we encountered during the campaign, was inarticulate, inexperienced, and irritating.  The McCain campaign deliberately kept her away from the press in order to avoid her rambling pseudo-statements from becoming headline news and fodder for SNL’s Tina Fey, who at times simply repeated Palin’s statements verbatim before a laughing audience rather than writing parody.  Yet at no time does Going Rogue admit mistakes.  Indeed, Palin inscribes the few moments that verge on admission — Palin acknowledges she campaigned less than passionately for the lieutenant governor position and thinks she may have hidden her last pregnancy from her constituents for too long — within Providence, stating that whatever she has done, whatever her failures, they are simply part of God’s larger plan for her.  Her faith may be genuine, but it is also convenient, for in subscribing her inaction and poor choices to the divine, she simultaneously sidesteps personal responsibility.

What Palin does not delegate to Providence she blames on McCain staffers, the vague, unidentified “headquarters” and “political machine.”  The one villain Palin does identify is McCain’s campaign manager Steve Schmidt, whom Palin blames for neglecting to shift the campaign’s message from national security to the economy; disallowing her to give a concession speech on election night; telling her what to say, wear, and eat; not permitting her to jog; and swearing in front of her daughter.  The $100K+ spent on her high-end wardrobe was the campaign’s doing, not hers, naturally.  The campaign forbade Palin from discussing Obama’s connections with “domestic terrorist” William Ayers, the controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and ACORN not because the public saw them for the crackpot conspiracy theories they were, but because the campaign was poorly managed.  Going Rogue becomes increasingly self-righteous at this point, as Palin proceeds to assert once again that Alaska’s proximity to Russia qualifies as foreign policy experience, equates being interviewed by newspapers with reading them, and compares the hacking of her email account to Watergate.

But no one can compare to Going Rogue‘s arch-villain, that despised liberal pundit Katie Couric.  Palin repeatedly indicates that she was insulted to be interviewed by a news anchor with such low ratings.  She also accuses Couric of posing “repetitive, biased” questions and editing the interviews to highlight Palin’s weaknesses and worst moments.  Indeed, Palin spends much of the latter half of the book portraying herself as a victim of a liberal media behemoth, never acknowledging that the interviews conveyed weaknesses because she had them, or that her inability to construct an intelligible answer may have prompted the repetitive questions.  The election and post-election sections of the book largely constitute a series of blame games; Palin wanted to interact with the media and with everyday Americans more, but “headquarters” wouldn’t allow it and punished her for speaking her mind, and when she did speak to reporters, they twisted her words and damaged her credibility and reputation.  Palin never admits fault or takes responsibility (If you don’t want to be filmed in front of someone decapitating turkeys, try not standing in front of someone who is decapitating turkeys rather than blaming the cameraman in your memoir).  In Palin’s defense, though, her decision to resign as governor in 2009 comes off as reasonable.  Bogged down in ethics complaints and lawsuits, which Alaska’s government requires the governor to dispute using his or her own funds, Palin and her staffers were personally going broke, while abundant Freedom of Information Act requests brought the government to a standstill and monopolized taxpayer funds.  Leaving office saved Palin and Alaska’s taxpayers a lot of money.

Going Rogue‘s final chapter is supposed to outline Palin’s vision for America’s future, but it primarily consists of Obama bashing and unsubstantiated claims (Cap and Trade will destroy farms!  The New Deal caused the Depression!).  Palin decries the escalating national debt yet supports U.S. involvement in two oversees wars and opposes raising taxes, despite the fact that 47% of Americans paid no income taxes for tax year 2009.  She states that she empathizes with people who cannot afford health care, yet she offers no solutions for fixing the broken system.  Like most Republicans in office today, Palin rants against Obama but offers no concrete alternatives to the Democrats’ proposals.

I don’t know what the future has in store for Sarah Palin, the hockey mom turned maverick politician turned Fox News talking head.  Perhaps she will become a permanent fixture of reality television (the Palin reality show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, debuts November 14th on TLC), or perhaps she will challenge Obama in the 2012 election.  Either way, it’s Providence — and more material for Tina Fey.

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