Dueling Palin Reviews Equals Zero For Readers

I don't really see much point to newspapers running dueling reviews of a single book -- it's sort of feckless, isn't it? Well, shucks! if you didn't like this take on the book, we've got another one column over that may be more to your liking? I guess when you're running low on subscribers, you have to do something to be all things to all people! That said, the Washington Post's decision to run a left-wing versus right-wing take on Sarah Palin's Going Rogue seems to be an especially poorly-conceived idea. Beginning with the fact that the very conceit sort of limits the impact of the review, by making the entire exercise seem, uhm... predictable.

But let's consider the two points of view. Writing "for the left" is Air America blogger (and Friend to Eat The Press) Ana Marie Cox, who, by her own admission, was given a single afternoon to read the entire book and render a "review." This restriction, apparently, did not bother the Post's editors, but Cox made sure to mention it, out of deference to readers. On the other side, we have... Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard, who not only apparently had the chance to read Palin's book in full, but has also written his own book on the topic, The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star. This seems to be a duel between badly mismatched duelists, neither of whom is really to blame for the gap between them.

Cox, despite the limitations imposed on her review opportunity, gamely attempts to pull out some interesting details and make as informed a criticism as anyone can who's admitted up front that it won't be possible. Lest you think that I'm mounting a blind defense of a personal friend, I'll tell you that Ana Marie's review is surprisingly bereft of the sorts of insights into Palin's relationships with the various players in the McCain campaign that I know she could offer, having covered the McCain campaign as extensively as she has.

Continetti, by contrast, isn't nearly as cheerleadery as I figured he would be. At one point, he offers, "if you like Palin, you'll like Going Rogue -- and if you don't like Palin, well, I hear the new Stephen King is pretty good," which is about as customer-oriented as a review of this book can be. But for all his familiarity with the book (which apparently makes him think of obscure German literary critics) and the subject matter (again, Continetti, WROTE HIS OWN BOOK ON PALIN) he doesn't do much in the way of reviewing the book's contents. Instead, we get a paragraph of generalities that could have come straight from HarperCollins's P.R. department, followed by a lengthy take on the media's reaction to the book.

So, instead of "dueling book reviews," we get one reviewer who's not been afforded enough time to complete the task, and another reviewer who apparently had the time but declined to proffer an actual review. Naturally, commenters are currently ripping apart Cox for not finishing the book and Contenetti for being "worshipful" and "sycophantic." But this is the Post's fault, not the reviewers!

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Comments

[MikeElPaso]

Continetti was a guest on C-SPAN2 and came out with these two comments that are a sampling of his defense of Sarah Palin:

1) The media claims that she has no governing policies and offers as proof that there are policies posted daily on her Twitter account.

2) The reason that people find her hard to take seriously is her accent.

Once more confirming that love is blind (and deaf).

[outahere]

thousands of people traveling hundreds of miles, some by air; to stand in line for days in the middle of the work week, holding a "full price" book in one hand and fast food in the other. Remindful of the heyday of Cabbage Patch dolls and Beanie Babies. Economy of Dearborn, Michigan and other red state cities looks pretty good to me!

[TomDegan]

From reading excerpts of the book, one conclusion that is unavoidable is the woman's jaw-dropping shallowness. When telling the story of how she was confronted at one point with news reports that she and her husband Todd were going to divorce, one would think (indeed one would hope) that she would offer for the reader's contemplation a heartfelt description of her abiding love for her husband; how their union could not be tossed aside like some disposable camera - that she and Todd took their wedding vows seriously. No, there was none of that....

"Dang, I thought. Divorce Todd? Have you SEEN Todd???"

TRANSLATION: If Todd gains fifty pounds, he's toast.

Thirteen years into their marriage, Eleanor Roosevelt was confronted with her husband's affair with her social secretary (and distant relative of mine - I come from a long line of home wreckers) Lucy Paige Mercer. After contemplating divorce, it was decided that they would continue their union. Years later, she confided to her friend, Joesph Lash, the reasons for saving their marriage. They were many and complicated. This, I can assure you, was not one of those reasons:

"Dang, I thought. Divorce Franklin? Have you SEEN Franklin???"

Ah, substance!

wwwtomdegan.blogspot.comt.com

Tom Degan
Goshen, New York

[ChicagoSuz]

I'm hoping someone gives me a copy...
...so I can exchange it for a cool 2010 calendar... ;-)

[ajax2]

Oprah has given Palin and her book renewed legitimacy.

[xypher0725]

I dunno...Oprah has had made-up memoirs on her booklist before...history repeating itself?

[Bulbul]

Palin`s book and interviews are like the theme of the Sienfeld show, it is about nothing written by someone with nothing inside her head , basically the whole event is a tempest in a teapot.....

[beyondliberal]

Goody. The book is perfect for a "Secret Santa", white elephant exchange at the office Christmas party this year! (but they aren't getting my stash!)

[MikeElPaso]

Nasty

[beyondliberal]

Despite the fact the book was ghost-written and proofed by a NewsCorp editor, it still has all the grammatical, punctuation, and usage errors which are typical of SP. Such errors are obvious every time she (SP) opens her mouth. Either the woman who wrote it is atrociously bad, or she has the edge when it comes to really representing her subject. If Palin had read the proofs and given any input into the final draft, would she have found the depiction of her poor English unflattering? Probably not; I seriously doubt she would even notice.

[alma parker]

Thanks for tuning into the editing-sloppiness channel for us. Not really germane to SP's issues, but certainly a good topic for general mental exercise, assuming you favor linguistic prescriptivism over descriptivism. The trouble is that once we go down this path and leave substance for style, it demonstrates a lack of seriousness on real issues. Worse yet, it screams out an invite for similar treatment.

Last thing you need if you'd actually prefer folks to think about the issues are folks suggesting that, for clarity, your post would have worked better with a semicolon after "Probably not." Or suggesting that "ghost-written" and "proofed" lack parallelism with respect to tense. Or that the "(SP)" interspersed between the pronouns "she" and "her" when their (common) antecedent is quite clear already is superfluous. Or that "is...bad" and "has...edge" aren't quite parallel, either. And so on, and so forth. In other words, let's get our own house in order if we want the focus on the style rather than the substance.

Or, we could we (please) go back to the issues instead of silly style points?

[dzent1]

"Or, we could we (please) go back to the issues instead of silly style points?"

Why? The entire book is bereft of anything substantive, as banal and uninformed as the person who supposedly penned it. I'll probably trip over a big pile of copies of this ego-driven slop next time I'm at the dollar store.

[xxxooo]

I still believe that Sarah Palin does more for her political adversaries than she does for those who support her. Her consistent self-serving actions are red-meat for her political and ideological opponents and book reviewers playing "good cop/bad cop" are only keeping the fire lit.

Sarah Palin will never win the hearts and minds of the majority because her message is too inconsistent for the information highway and the blogosphere to either ignore or deny.

Pro-choice advocates are the biggest benificiaries from a Palin-antagonist and her self-proclaimed "rogue/maverick" persona makes her a loose-cannon for political allies.

[redsongia]

Not to mention, no potential winning GOPer can get a word in while she's busy sucking the air out of the room.

[ellieanne]

A Review Part 1 Basic psychology, we tend to like those who are like us. Sarah, her weaknesses, scare me, - There are that many people somewhat like Sarah in this country. With the media dissecting the book, why bother to actually crack the cover? It’s a coffee table trophy. How many of her base will actually read it through?

If you are Christian, when Sarah gives a speech or writes, just ask yourself. Would Jesus have made that remark about another human being? Is that how Jesus would have turned the other cheek? Is that how Jesus would have governed? Was Jesus a quitter? Who would Jesus have forgiven in Sarah's shoes? Would Jesus have gossiped about his disciples and broadcast that sin to millions for profit, or power, or celebrity?

If she can't even try to follow Jesus on the seemingly little stuff how can you make the leap to expect her to follow Jesus in governing with the big stuff, like global power, delicate diplomacy, nuclear weaponry, an economy in shambles. Her quitting the Alaska governorship, was quitting the training ground that would have put God governing through her on display. With God really guiding her, it couldn't have been too tough to govern. Where was her practical faith in God for governing? What no one said was her quitting displayed her lack of faith in God guiding her. Yet that is what her base needs to notice in a big way.

(Part 2 separate post)

[BlackJAC]

Amazon does the same thing with the most recommended favorable and critical reviews of a given book all the time; what's the problem?

[mimigrammy]

Palin's response to Barbara W. question on Israel's continued settlements in Palestinean territories says it all. SHE IS BEYOND UNQUALIFIED, TOTALLY IRRELEVANT and I stand a better chance of winning the Republican nomination in 2012 than she does. Other Republican candidates will destroy her like some species eat their young.

[lynettema]

If/when she runs for prez, will her opponents dare say a negative word about the base's darling? That should be very interesting should Palin run for prez.

[bigsioux]

HP needs to create a separate section just for Palin. Get over her.

[lizt]

They will get over her when she stops self-promoting and the Republicans stop using her and the Democrats stop laughing.

[protagonia]

Why?

[nuclearmonkeys]

She's a great prop for reminding people that the Republican Party is an intellectual vacuum. Keep the spotlight on her as long as possible.

[Melissa]

She's great and she is driving the liberals crazy.

[LeighAnnes]

This liberal wishes they would use the whole body shot. I love that red jacket. I was looking at Nordstrom's and Neiman Marcus to see if I could find it. Of course, I'll be paying for it with my own money.

[dzent1]

If that's what you call "greatness" then you're the one who's crazy...

[Okieborn]

Sister Sarah is getting long in the tooth and then there was "NOTHING" !!

[MinasTirith]

All the hoopla about Palin reminds me of one of my favorite Douglas Adams quotes:

"For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or two, nothing continued to happen"

Too bad Huffpo and others aren't quite seeing it that way.

[redsongia]

I'm still waiting to find out exactly what she does and what she hopes to ever do.

[illinoisan]

To be fair, an actual literary review would be aimed at the ghost writer, not the ostensible autobiographer.

[jimmygee]

Dead on!

[Shaddup]

And it speaks volumes that Palin gives that author no credit.