Going Rogue: An American Life
Encyclopedia
Going Rogue: An American Life is a personal and political memoir
of Sarah Palin
, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican candidate for U.S. Vice President. The book became a New York Times #1 bestseller
in its first week of release, and remained there for six weeks. It is one of four recent political memoirs to sell more than two million copies.
's campaign advisers, criticizes the national media, and talks about the importance of religion and family life.
The "Going Rogue" part of the title derives from criticism leveled at Palin by McCain campaign advisers that she was straying from their carefully crafted message and publicly disagreeing with McCain on several issues. The subtitle, "An American Life", mirrors the title of President Ronald Reagan
's 1990 autobiography
.
Palin announced that although she would have a collaborator to help, she would be doing a lot of the writing herself, employing her journalism skills and the personal diaries and notes that she had kept throughout her life. Nonetheless, critics questioned whether Palin could write a book.
Responding to concerns that writing and promoting the book would interfere with her duties as governor, Palin stated she would only work on the book after hours and would promote the book "schedule permitting". The Alaska
law department issued a legal opinion which okayed the project, stating: "A book publication project is compatible with your position as governor so long as it does not interfere with your official duties."
Conservative journalist and author Lynn Vincent
worked on the book with Palin for several weeks shortly after she resigned the governorship
in the summer of 2009. Palin then met with HarperCollins editors for intensive editing sessions in New York City
. HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham said that Palin had been "unbelievably conscientious and hands-on at every stage", adding that the book was "her words, her life ... in full and fascinating detail." HarperCollins had planned publication for Spring 2010, but later moved the date to November 17, 2009, as the book was completed earlier than expected. The publisher attributed the speed with which the memoir was written to Palin devoting full time to the writing process after she left office. A paperback version of the book, with new material, released on August 24, 2010. Palin released a second book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, on November 23, 2010.
, Target.com
, and Walmart.com. Dan Calabrese, writing in the North Star National, called the sales "an absolutely unprecedented performance for a non-fiction book so far in advance of its release date."
Less than two weeks after its release, sales of the book exceeded the one million mark, putting it in a class with memoirs by Bill Clinton
, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
. The print run was extended to 2.8 million copies from 1.5 million. Going Rogue attained sales of over 2.7 million by December 1, 2009, and was number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for six consecutive weeks. As of January 21, 2010, it was #4 on the New York Times best seller list after 9 weeks in the Top 10.
According to campaign records, late in 2009, Palin used $63,000 of donations from SarahPAC, her political action committee
, to purchase copies of her own book, Going Rogue. The expenditures were listed as, "books for fundraising donor fulfillment." Meghan Stapleton, Palin's spokeswoman, stated the purchased books were autographed and awarded to donors contributing more than $100 to Palin's PAC.
challenged some of Palin's statements as factually incorrect, such as her assertions that she traveled frugally, avoided large campaign donors, was against the Wall Street bailouts of 2008
, and entered politics for purely altruistic reasons. Their analysis concluded by speculating that the book was "a pre-campaign manifesto". According to Fox News, an AP spokesman "confirmed 11 people worked on the story . . . but refused to say if similar number of journalists were assigned to review other political books, or if Palin has been treated differently.". Fox also reported "The (AP) organization did not review for accuracy recent books by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, then-Sen. Joe Biden, either book by Barack Obama released before he was president or autobiographies by Bill or Hillary Clinton." The Huffington Post followed with an article titled "The First Ten Lies from Going Rogue", including the failure to credit ghostwriter Vincent on the cover, Palin's statement about legal bills she incurred relating to ethics complaints without disclosing that most of the bills resulted from complaints she herself filed as a tactic in connection with Troopergate
, and her assertion that she had to pay $50,000 in fees to be vetted by the McCain campaign.
Palin replied to these criticisms stating: "as is expected, the AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book." Conservative talk show
host John Ziegler
objected to the AP piece, saying that the AP is extremely biased and "badly missing the most important points of Sarah Palin's book".
Former McCain campaign aides "hit back", according to The Politico
, "calling the former vice presidential nominee's soon-to-be released book 'revisionist and self serving' 'fiction'." Palin's mention of a willingness to have coffee with Hillary Clinton elicited a positive response from Clinton, who said she would "absolutely look forward" to it, and that it would be "very interesting". A representative for Katie Couric
responded to the book's assertion that Couric had badgered Palin during their infamous 2008 interview by saying, "The interview speaks for itself."
The editors of the progressive magazine The Nation
compiled a collection of short essays highly critical of Palin, giving it a satirical title and a cover very similar to Palin's book. The paperback, variously described as a faux-memoir and a political counterpoint, was released on the same day as Palin’s book and is titled Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare
.
Positive reviews
Conservative radio talk show host John Ziegler
praised Going Rogue as "the best book and greatest literary achievement by a political figure in my lifetime" and as showing honesty "the type of which can only come from someone incredibly courageous, grounded, and self-aware." Republican radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh
called the book "truly one of the more substantive policy books I've read." Stanley Fish
, writing for The New York Times
Opinionator blog, explained that "while I wouldn’t count myself a fan in the sense of being a supporter, I found [the book] compelling and very well done."
Media Matters for America
opined that the positive reviews showed that, "no matter how self-discrediting and ridiculous her book was, the conservative media would leap to her defense...."
Mixed reviews
The Wall Street Journals Melanie Kirkpatrick described the book as "more a personal memoir than a political one," which demonstrated that Palin "is not the prejudiced, dim-witted ideologue of the popular liberal imagination." However, Kirkpatrick criticized the book as "too gentle" on the McCain campaign staffers and McCain himself, and as spending too little time discussing political issues. Critic Michiko Kakutani
, writing for the New York Times, characterized Going Rogue as "part earnest autobiography, part payback hit job," noting that it was more critical of the McCain campaign than it was of Democrats. Kakutani credited the book with doing a "lively job of conveying the frontier feel of the 49th state." Matthew Continetti
observed that Palin's book was "everything you'd expect from a politician who has no intention of leaving the national scene." Entertainment Weekly
gave the book a C, praising the first chapters about Palin's life as "down-to-earth and funny" while concluding that the rest of the memoir was mediocre and self-serving.
Negative reviews
Jack Kenny for The New American took the book to task for being light on policy content: "Do I know any more about Sarah Palin’s political ambitions or core beliefs at the end of the book than I did at the beginning? Aside from a few vague hints of something deeper, the answer is 'no'." Mark Kennedy of the Associated Press
said the book was "less the revealing autobiography of a straight-shooting maverick and more a lengthy campaign speech — more lipstick, less pit bull." Like other reviewers, Kennedy felt "Palin reserves most of her attacks for McCain's advisers." In its review, the Huffington Post described the book as "one giant complaint about the conduct of John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign." Michael Carey of the Anchorage Daily News said "there is a big something missing from Palin's narrative: the voice of a leader." Thomas Frank
, writing for the Wall Street Journal, panned the book: "This is the memoir as prolonged, keening wail, larded with petty vindictiveness." Newsweek
senior editor Michael Hirsh
said that "she seems to be mainly out for repudiation of her critics here, and what you see is a lot of self-involvement" and that the book would "help her with her base...I don't know if it helps at all with what she would need to actually be elected president."
Bret Baier
of Fox News characterized the negative reviews as "outbreaks of 'Palin Derangement Syndrome
'."
, Barbara Walters
, Sean Hannity
, and Bill O'Reilly
, with the US News speculating that the interviews and book tour would be "strewn with land mines". Palin then began a three-week national book tour that focused on small and mid-size towns with 11 of the states she visited considered political battle-grounds for 2012. Large crowds turned out to greet Palin and get their books autographed with Palin spending as long as three hours at some venues. Media attention focused on one incident in Indiana
where a small crowd of approximately 300 people who had waited in line for hours booed when Palin left before autographing their books. Palin quickly apologized for the incident on her Facebook
page. ABC News characterized her bus book tour as "extraordinarily successful" but suggested she might be criticized for taking a private jet provided by the publisher for long legs of the journey.
In addition to the book tour, a web-based campaign directed ads for the book to people searching for Palin's name on Google
. Palin also utilized her Facebook page, (accessible to non subscribers), to promote her book.
similarly parodied the contents with a faux first draft complete with fake notes between Palin and her editors. Cartoonist Julie Sigwart and radio host Michael Stinson released a 48 page spoof Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book on the same day that Palin's Going Rogue appeared on the shelves. South Park
featured a parody of the book called, Going Rogue on the Smurfs. The website goingrogueindex.com leads to a proper-name index for Going Rogue (which was published without one) that features satirical trappings such as a photo collage of several historical figures quoted in the book and an embedded German song that translates to "Madonna in Hell."
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
of Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican candidate for U.S. Vice President. The book became a New York Times #1 bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
in its first week of release, and remained there for six weeks. It is one of four recent political memoirs to sell more than two million copies.
Summary and themes
The first part of the book is devoted to Palin's experiences before the campaign; the second part details her life as a candidate for national office. The book is written in a personal tone similar to Palin's manner of speaking. Palin discusses the disagreements she had with running mate John McCainJohn McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
's campaign advisers, criticizes the national media, and talks about the importance of religion and family life.
The "Going Rogue" part of the title derives from criticism leveled at Palin by McCain campaign advisers that she was straying from their carefully crafted message and publicly disagreeing with McCain on several issues. The subtitle, "An American Life", mirrors the title of President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
's 1990 autobiography
An American Life
An American Life is the 1990 autobiography authored by former American President Ronald Reagan. Released almost two years after President Reagan left office, the book reached number eight on The New York Times bestsellers list.-Content:...
.
Writing process
The book deal was announced in May 2009 when Palin was still Governor of Alaska, with Palin stating that she wanted the public to hear her true story, "unrestrained and unfiltered". She reportedly received an advance of $1.25 million from the publisher, Harper Collins, with two projected additional payouts of between $2.5 million and $5 million each.Palin announced that although she would have a collaborator to help, she would be doing a lot of the writing herself, employing her journalism skills and the personal diaries and notes that she had kept throughout her life. Nonetheless, critics questioned whether Palin could write a book.
Responding to concerns that writing and promoting the book would interfere with her duties as governor, Palin stated she would only work on the book after hours and would promote the book "schedule permitting". The Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
law department issued a legal opinion which okayed the project, stating: "A book publication project is compatible with your position as governor so long as it does not interfere with your official duties."
Conservative journalist and author Lynn Vincent
Lynn Vincent
Lynn Vincent is a bestselling conservative American writer, journalist, and author or co-author of 10 books. Vincent's work focuses on memoirs, politics and current events...
worked on the book with Palin for several weeks shortly after she resigned the governorship
Resignation of Sarah Palin
The resignation of Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska was announced on July 3, 2009 and became effective on July 26. Sean Parnell, the lieutenant governor, took Palin's place as governor.-Reasons for the resignation:...
in the summer of 2009. Palin then met with HarperCollins editors for intensive editing sessions in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham said that Palin had been "unbelievably conscientious and hands-on at every stage", adding that the book was "her words, her life ... in full and fascinating detail." HarperCollins had planned publication for Spring 2010, but later moved the date to November 17, 2009, as the book was completed earlier than expected. The publisher attributed the speed with which the memoir was written to Palin devoting full time to the writing process after she left office. A paperback version of the book, with new material, released on August 24, 2010. Palin released a second book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, on November 23, 2010.
Commercial and critical reception
The book was available for pre-order between $9 and $10 during a price war amongst online retailers AmazonAmazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, Target.com
Target Corporation
Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
, and Walmart.com. Dan Calabrese, writing in the North Star National, called the sales "an absolutely unprecedented performance for a non-fiction book so far in advance of its release date."
Less than two weeks after its release, sales of the book exceeded the one million mark, putting it in a class with memoirs by Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
. The print run was extended to 2.8 million copies from 1.5 million. Going Rogue attained sales of over 2.7 million by December 1, 2009, and was number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for six consecutive weeks. As of January 21, 2010, it was #4 on the New York Times best seller list after 9 weeks in the Top 10.
According to campaign records, late in 2009, Palin used $63,000 of donations from SarahPAC, her political action committee
Political action committee
In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...
, to purchase copies of her own book, Going Rogue. The expenditures were listed as, "books for fundraising donor fulfillment." Meghan Stapleton, Palin's spokeswoman, stated the purchased books were autographed and awarded to donors contributing more than $100 to Palin's PAC.
Analysis and reactions
A team of eleven reporters for the Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
challenged some of Palin's statements as factually incorrect, such as her assertions that she traveled frugally, avoided large campaign donors, was against the Wall Street bailouts of 2008
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Division A of , commonly referred to as a bailout of the U.S. financial system, is a law enacted in response to the subprime mortgage crisis...
, and entered politics for purely altruistic reasons. Their analysis concluded by speculating that the book was "a pre-campaign manifesto". According to Fox News, an AP spokesman "confirmed 11 people worked on the story . . . but refused to say if similar number of journalists were assigned to review other political books, or if Palin has been treated differently.". Fox also reported "The (AP) organization did not review for accuracy recent books by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, then-Sen. Joe Biden, either book by Barack Obama released before he was president or autobiographies by Bill or Hillary Clinton." The Huffington Post followed with an article titled "The First Ten Lies from Going Rogue", including the failure to credit ghostwriter Vincent on the cover, Palin's statement about legal bills she incurred relating to ethics complaints without disclosing that most of the bills resulted from complaints she herself filed as a tactic in connection with Troopergate
Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal
The Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal, also known as Troopergate, involves the July 2008 dismissal of the Public Safety Commissioner for the State of Alaska by Governor Sarah Palin....
, and her assertion that she had to pay $50,000 in fees to be vetted by the McCain campaign.
Palin replied to these criticisms stating: "as is expected, the AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book." Conservative talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
host John Ziegler
John Ziegler (talk show host)
John Ziegler is a conservative radio talk show host turned documentary film writer/director.Ziegler's most prominent work in radio has been as the evening host of a radio talk show called The John Ziegler Show on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles, California from January 12, 2004 until November 13, 2007...
objected to the AP piece, saying that the AP is extremely biased and "badly missing the most important points of Sarah Palin's book".
Former McCain campaign aides "hit back", according to The Politico
The Politico
The Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C., includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency...
, "calling the former vice presidential nominee's soon-to-be released book 'revisionist and self serving' 'fiction'." Palin's mention of a willingness to have coffee with Hillary Clinton elicited a positive response from Clinton, who said she would "absolutely look forward" to it, and that it would be "very interesting". A representative for Katie Couric
Katie Couric
Katherine Anne "Katie" Couric is an American journalist and author. She serves as Special Correspondent for ABC News, contributing to ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, This Week and primetime news specials...
responded to the book's assertion that Couric had badgered Palin during their infamous 2008 interview by saying, "The interview speaks for itself."
The editors of the progressive magazine The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
compiled a collection of short essays highly critical of Palin, giving it a satirical title and a cover very similar to Palin's book. The paperback, variously described as a faux-memoir and a political counterpoint, was released on the same day as Palin’s book and is titled Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare
Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare
Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare is a book comprising a collection of essays about Sarah Palin with a spoof title and cover design intended to lampoon Palin’s memoir Going Rogue: An American Life. It was released on November 17, 2009...
.
Reviews
The book drew a variety of reviews.Positive reviews
Conservative radio talk show host John Ziegler
John Ziegler (talk show host)
John Ziegler is a conservative radio talk show host turned documentary film writer/director.Ziegler's most prominent work in radio has been as the evening host of a radio talk show called The John Ziegler Show on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles, California from January 12, 2004 until November 13, 2007...
praised Going Rogue as "the best book and greatest literary achievement by a political figure in my lifetime" and as showing honesty "the type of which can only come from someone incredibly courageous, grounded, and self-aware." Republican radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
called the book "truly one of the more substantive policy books I've read." Stanley Fish
Stanley Fish
Stanley Eugene Fish is an American literary theorist and legal scholar. He was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island...
, writing for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Opinionator blog, explained that "while I wouldn’t count myself a fan in the sense of being a supporter, I found [the book] compelling and very well done."
Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America is a politically progressive media watchdog group which says it is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Set up as a 501 non-profit organization, MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and...
opined that the positive reviews showed that, "no matter how self-discrediting and ridiculous her book was, the conservative media would leap to her defense...."
Mixed reviews
The Wall Street Journals Melanie Kirkpatrick described the book as "more a personal memoir than a political one," which demonstrated that Palin "is not the prejudiced, dim-witted ideologue of the popular liberal imagination." However, Kirkpatrick criticized the book as "too gentle" on the McCain campaign staffers and McCain himself, and as spending too little time discussing political issues. Critic Michiko Kakutani
Michiko Kakutani
is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times and is considered by many to be a leading literary critic in the United States.-Life and career:...
, writing for the New York Times, characterized Going Rogue as "part earnest autobiography, part payback hit job," noting that it was more critical of the McCain campaign than it was of Democrats. Kakutani credited the book with doing a "lively job of conveying the frontier feel of the 49th state." Matthew Continetti
Matthew Continetti
Matthew Continetti is a conservative journalist and associate editor at The Weekly Standard.-Biography:He graduated from Columbia University in 2003. While in college he wrote for the Columbia Spectator and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's magazine, CAMPUS...
observed that Palin's book was "everything you'd expect from a politician who has no intention of leaving the national scene." Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the book a C, praising the first chapters about Palin's life as "down-to-earth and funny" while concluding that the rest of the memoir was mediocre and self-serving.
Negative reviews
Jack Kenny for The New American took the book to task for being light on policy content: "Do I know any more about Sarah Palin’s political ambitions or core beliefs at the end of the book than I did at the beginning? Aside from a few vague hints of something deeper, the answer is 'no'." Mark Kennedy of the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
said the book was "less the revealing autobiography of a straight-shooting maverick and more a lengthy campaign speech — more lipstick, less pit bull." Like other reviewers, Kennedy felt "Palin reserves most of her attacks for McCain's advisers." In its review, the Huffington Post described the book as "one giant complaint about the conduct of John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign." Michael Carey of the Anchorage Daily News said "there is a big something missing from Palin's narrative: the voice of a leader." Thomas Frank
Thomas Frank
Thomas Frank is an American author, journalist and columnist for Harper's Magazine. He is a former columnist for the Wall Street Journal, authoring "The Tilting Yard" from 2008 to 2010....
, writing for the Wall Street Journal, panned the book: "This is the memoir as prolonged, keening wail, larded with petty vindictiveness." Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
senior editor Michael Hirsh
Michael Hirsh (journalist)
Michael Hirsh is the former Foreign Editor and chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek. He is currently a senior editor in the magazine's Washington bureau. He was a member of JournoList...
said that "she seems to be mainly out for repudiation of her critics here, and what you see is a lot of self-involvement" and that the book would "help her with her base...I don't know if it helps at all with what she would need to actually be elected president."
Bret Baier
Bret Baier
Bret Baier is an American journalist and the host of Special Report with Bret Baier on Fox News Channel. He previously worked as the network's Chief White House Correspondent and Pentagon correspondent.-Career:...
of Fox News characterized the negative reviews as "outbreaks of 'Palin Derangement Syndrome
Bush Derangement Syndrome
"Bush Derangement Syndrome" is a pejorative political neologism coined by Charles Krauthammer, an American conservative political columnist and former psychiatrist, in a 2003 column...
'."
Book tour
Palin was interviewed in rapid succession by Oprah WinfreyOprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
, Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters
Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
, Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...
, and Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (commentator)
William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...
, with the US News speculating that the interviews and book tour would be "strewn with land mines". Palin then began a three-week national book tour that focused on small and mid-size towns with 11 of the states she visited considered political battle-grounds for 2012. Large crowds turned out to greet Palin and get their books autographed with Palin spending as long as three hours at some venues. Media attention focused on one incident in Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
where a small crowd of approximately 300 people who had waited in line for hours booed when Palin left before autographing their books. Palin quickly apologized for the incident on her Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
page. ABC News characterized her bus book tour as "extraordinarily successful" but suggested she might be criticized for taking a private jet provided by the publisher for long legs of the journey.
In addition to the book tour, a web-based campaign directed ads for the book to people searching for Palin's name on Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
. Palin also utilized her Facebook page, (accessible to non subscribers), to promote her book.
Parodies
Going Rogue has inspired a number of parodies and satirical interpretations. Roy Edroso of the Village Voice "reviewed" the book by writing fake excerpts. TA Frank of The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
similarly parodied the contents with a faux first draft complete with fake notes between Palin and her editors. Cartoonist Julie Sigwart and radio host Michael Stinson released a 48 page spoof Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book on the same day that Palin's Going Rogue appeared on the shelves. South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
featured a parody of the book called, Going Rogue on the Smurfs. The website goingrogueindex.com leads to a proper-name index for Going Rogue (which was published without one) that features satirical trappings such as a photo collage of several historical figures quoted in the book and an embedded German song that translates to "Madonna in Hell."
External links
- Sarah Palin page at HarperCollins Publishers
- Sarah and Her Tribe Jonathan RabanJonathan RabanJonathan Raban is a British travel writer and novelist. He has received several awards, such as the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers...
review of Going Rogue from The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...