The First Ten Lies from Going Rogue

Excerpts from Sarah Palin's Going Rogue have been released by several news agencies and other sources who have received advanced copies. Here are the first ten lies from Palin's memoirs:

1. The Cover Byline: Palin didn't write the book by herself. Most books with known ghostwriters list their co-author's name on the cover. In this case it was Lynn Vincent (a well-known homophobe). Going Rogue does not.
2. The Subtitle: An American Life. Aside from her infancy, Palin has really spent very little time outside of Alaska, and according to John McCain's campaign advisors, was shockingly unfamiliar with American geography and American history. "Alaska," as John McPhee noted in his resplendent Coming Into the Country, "is a foreign country...Its nature is its own."
3. Going Rogue features Palin's obsession with Katie Couric and characterizes the CBS anchor as "badgering." Palin refused to prep for the Couric interview because she was more concerned about her popularity in Alaska than about what was best for the campaign. Was it really badgering to ask what books or periodicals Palin read? Palin further claims that Couric suffered from low self-esteem. In fact, according to those close to Palin, it's the former governor who suffers from low self-esteem and frequently projects that onto other women.
4. Palin asserts that there was a "jaded aura" around McCain's political advisors once she entered the campaign. In fact, McCain's aides bent over backwards to protect Palin and to try to get her up to speed on international affairs. In addition to not knowing whether or not Africa was a continent, according to sources in the McCain campaign, Palin also didn't understand the difference between England and Great Britain. And much, much more.
5. Palin contends to have been saddled with legal bills of more than $500,000 resulting from what she calls "frivolous" ethics complaints filed against her. The lion's share of those bills resulted from the ethics complaint she filed against herself in a legal maneuver to sidestep the Troopergate charges being brought against her by the bipartisan Alaska Legislative Council.
6. Palin rather astonishingly claims that she was saddled with $50,000 in bills for the legal fees associated with her vice-presidential vetting. A) She was not vetted; B) A McCain campaign advisor says this is "categorically untrue."
7. Palin states that she found out only "minutes" before John McCain's concession speech that she would not be allowed to make remarks of her own introducing McCain. In fact, she had been told at least three times that she would not be allowed to give the speech and kept lying about it in the hopes of creating some last-minute chaos that would allow her to assume the dais.
8. Palin asserts that her effort to award a license for a natural gas transmission line was turning a "pipe dream" into a pipeline. Although she claimed otherwise in her speech at the GOP convention, there is no pipeline. It remains a pipe dream.
9. Palin implies that the McCain campaign intentionally bungled the release of information regarding her daughter Bristol's pregnancy and refused to let her rewrite it. In fact, the McCain campaign allowed her to rework the draft, but the original version went out accidentally. Palin reportedly accepted the recalcitrant staff member's apology for the mistake, then when she left, ordered her immediately dismissed of her duties.
10. Palin complains that McCain's senior advisors, most notably Steve Schmidt, forced her to "stick with the script" they provided her. In fact, Schmidt & Co. were encumbered with the task of keeping Palin from lying and misleading people throughout the campaign, from her well-documented lies about the "Bridge to Nowhere" to her duplicities about her husband Todd's assocation with the Alaska Independence Party. Palin's lying to those in the McCain campaign was so troubling to them that they cringed every time she went "off script."

And that's just for starters.

Award-winning writer and filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn's book The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power will be released by St. Martin's Press in spring 2010.

 

Comments

[Mason Paul]

Excellent comments. Thanks for drawing out for us the truth.

[Ginauna]

Its interesting that majority of these comments on here are bashers....not very deep debatable discussion­s...pitifu­l

[Nine Jitsu]

First let me say great article. Second, I wish I had read it before I bought this horrible book.

I stood in line to get my copy of this book fearing it might be sold out. Hot chick on the cover, so far so good.

To my chagrin it didn't start out well. I thought at some point this has to get better. But guess what it doesn't! There's nothing about dex rolls, dps builds, searching for traps, sneak attacks, +4 daggers or anything!

All it is some woman whining about how everyone in her party wouldn't let her make any decisions, about how a Couric made her look like a complete idiot (I couldn't find it in the monster manual but, I'm guessing it must be like a Sphinx), and how her group leader wouldn't let her be rogue enough.

She doesn't even have any daggers! I mean, that's hardly the group leader's fault! She should have loaded out before the quest started!

Plus, on every single page she bemoans her 8 INT build and blames her horrible playing on everyone else! It's her fault for putting all her stat points into Charisma!

To sum up, this book is terrible. It's anti-rogue if anything. If you want a book on how not to be a rogue this has got to be the bible. I'm going back to the store now to see if I can get my hard earned cash back for this awful drek.

[mjb5406]

It's not a total loss. First, accept it as a comedic work of fiction. Second, the cold winter months are upon us and you may need kindling for that fireplace. Third, if you get snowed in and run out of toilet paper... need I say more?

[Actongue]

No matter how good the dps is it will fail when played by a noob.

In order for Dps to survive they need a tank that can Hold aggro.

It is obvious that Sarah's dps build is equivelent to improperly distributing talent points into the wrong tree.

By quitting as governor she can not hold the required threat needed. We havehave seen, in those that surrounded her during the elections, were nothing more then fodder under her succubus gaze.

[DK in MS]

NPC comes to mind. Chaotic evil to be sure, though.

[Lastamendment]

Another point regarding #1 (the cover byline).

I took a look at the book to verify this item, and in fact Palin doesn't acknowledge Lynn Vincent on the inside cover page either. Nor does the copyright list Vincent. The only reference I found was a line on p. 410 where Palin thanks Vincent for helping the words onto the page or something to that effect.

I'm no fan of Palin, but I'm also not a publishing expert. Can anyone verify how much of the book was written by Vincent? Can Palin simply leave Vincent off the copyright page even if Vincent wrote enough of the text to be a co-author? If so, then there is really no telling how much (if any) of the book Palin wrote. But by the same token it would then appear to fall into the category of ghostwritten work, which may be venal but not the same kind of lying as, say, plagiarism. It would, though, confirm to us that Palin tries to do some amount of passing off of others' work as her own.

I think the true test of Palin will continue to be how she behaves when off script, or when she is on live TV or otherwise has to think on her feet. On that score she has consistently failed.

[laurama]

M'k, but at least she can form a coherent sentence without a working teleprompter:)

[Alphamailman]

Nope, she can't.

[kdogs]

I have a feeling a lot of people this lady knows will be going to treatment http://www.soberliving.com

[tjinc]

Hey, Kdogs.....Looks like an ad for a recovery clinic. Could this be a misuse of your posting privileges?

[mjb5406]

Hopefully it's just sarcasm... but who kmows?

[AkhenatonII]

Lies and the lying liars who tell them. (Props to Al Franken) Why do they insisted on trying to rewrite history when there is already so much newsprint on this crap already? She was a joke and still is a joke and will continue to be a joke in 2012.

[TimnySlagle]

So it's a lie that living in Alaska is "American?"

What about being born in Hawaiii?

[Reito Hikari]

sippewissett's response to a similar question from earlier best answers your question:

Sometimes journalists' points are missed by the literal minded. That happened here. You mount a defense of AK that is unrelated to Dunn's metaphorical thesis and to his argument as to why Palin in particular is not "American" but "Alaskan."

So to your question about hawaiian... if the person has lived in Hawaii all their life and has not traveled outside of it, can they generalized their life to be a typical 'American Life' or a typical 'Hawaiian Life?'

[TimnySlagle]

I was making a joke about Haiwaii; and I understand the point about Alaska being a foreign country.

But I don't believe it's a lie. (That's the point of the blog post, remember?)

Alaska is a frontier, which means it has more in common with the rugged individualism America is known for, than a lot of other States that seem more European lately.

It's a matter of perspective. I understand why Geoffrey might disagree with the subtittle, but it's not a LIE.

[TimnySlagle]

I don't really see the lie in number ten.

She claims the McCain camp "forced" her to sitck to the script, and you claim they "cringed" when she went off script.

So it's a lie because they didn't keep her on script at gunpoint?

[Reito Hikari]

Nope... you got it the other way around... she usually lied when she is off the script... e.g. Bridge to Nowhere, and Todd's role in the Alaskan Independence Party. Both of those topics were probably not on scripts since both would damage her image, but she chose to talk about them anyway, and lied about them.

[TimnySlagle]

It's a lie because the pipeline wasn't built yet? Even though she laid all the Ground Work?

Next thing you know, you'll tell me that Al Gore didn't really "take the intiative in creating the Internet."

[Reito Hikari]

Here you go... read up:

http://www.perkel.com/politics/gore/internet.htm

[TimnySlagle]

Uh, that's kind of what I said.

Palin built the pipeline the same way Gore created the Internet.

[tjinc]

I can see the Palin fans trying to split hairs about her lies. Take it into the overarching context. The woman is a lying opportunist.

She rivals Reagan only in the manner of how she can make totally outrageous statements and flat out lies, and get away with it.

No longer. Looks and a narrow political agenda catering to religious extremists can only carry her so far. She's a one-trick pony. A cartoon. Kitsch.

She's not interested in governing, hence quitting her governorship of Alaska for a mega-PR trip to nowhere. Let her be gone.

[EducatedObserver]

The attention being given to the former governor's treatise is worth a wry chuckle.

For, if the comments - and number of articles - on this newspaper are anything to go by, I imagine that Mrs Palin must now be chortling with glee at the interest her book has generated in left-wing America.

As they say - "there is no such thing as bad publicity."

[libertaswv]

I have no doubt you are correct - that would be perfectly in line with the grasp of American politics we've seen from her thus far.

She can chuckle all she wants.....Palin is the best thing to happen to the Left since GWB took office.

Rage on, Sarah! Every TV show! Every magazine! Please!!

[octoberxs]

Actually the percentage of those going to buy Palin's book as never changed. Those that didn't want her book to begin with are seeing what they thought being supported by the media reviews. Seeing they were right does not create an impulse to go out and buy her book. Those that will follow Palin off a cliff will buy her book no matter what the reviews are. There is nothing shocking or new in the book that will change her image within either group. The media can keep her book as a top story for a decade and it will not change the actual book sales.

[TimnySlagle]

So she exaggerated about when she found out that she couldn't make her own remarks before the concession speech.

Boy you caught her red handed there.

[Reito Hikari]

It's more the fact that she was spreading lies about not being informed until the last minute making her the victim, when she's really not. She's lying to get sympathy.

[TimnySlagle]

She's not lying.

[laurama]

She was told at the last minute. In fact, the campaign came to her initially and asked her to prepare for a speech - they wrote 2 - one for victory, one for defeat. It was the night of the election, she'd practiced both speeches and adjusted them to ahve a bit of herself in them (for the uninformed, all politicians do this), and it wasn't until not long before she would have gone on stage that she was told.

This was something a couple of journaslists who wrote "Sarah From Alaska" talked about. Apparently Palin's book just confirms what they said.

Bottom line, the ppl on this board, if God Himself (do you folks believe in God? Ha, just kidding) came down and confirmed something she said, you would accuse God of being brainwashed, lacking his Ivy League degree or some other ridiculous accusation because you simply don't want to hear anything positive about her.

It's that elitist POV that turns the stomachs of many people, who are getting tired of being told they are too dumb to run their lives or spend their money, and that ppl like you have to do it for them. This is the greatest threat to your gov't (Lib) majority, and Palin's greatest advantage. Ignore that at your own peril.

[Reito Hikari]

ALSO, why would a VP candidate give a concession speech? They has nothing to concede. They are just tagalongs on a ticket.

[TimnySlagle]

So a lot of her legal bills stemmed from a tactic she used to to avoid a frivolous lawsuit.

And you claim that this proves that she wasn't in debt because of lawsuits?

Just because the money was spent on a legal maneuver, rather than an actual suit makes this is a lie?

Really?

[Reito Hikari]

"The lion's share of those bills resulted from the ethics complaint she filed against herself in a legal maneuver to sidestep the Troopergate charges being brought against her by the bipartisan Alaska Legislative Council."

The lie is that she's exaggerating the dollar amount. He didn't say she was not in debt, but a big portion of it is caused by herself and not the lawsuits against her by others.

[TimnySlagle]

But the "legal maneuver" was done BECAUSE of a lawsuit.

She wouldn't have done it if she hadn't been sued, so it WAS caused by the lawsuit.

[TimnySlagle]

Gee, I don't remember a Ghostwriter Byline on "It Takes a Village" or Audacity of Hope"

Big stretch there Geoffrey...

[Reito Hikari]

"Most books with known ghostwriters list their co-author's name on the cover. In this case it was Lynn Vincent ."

If you can provide the ghostwriter for "Audacity of Hope" then you can start making this claim.

[laurama]

You and Geoffy can keep trying. No one tried to keep the name of the ghost writer secret - that's been out there forever. That her name wasn't on the book could be because of the extent of her "ghost writing" or a contract. Who knows? Doesn't matter tho, because no one has ever tried to hide that there was a ghost writer or what her name is.

[Mark3322]

Through writing analyses and other evidence, most experts now agree that Bill Ayres wrote 'Audacity of Hope' and most likely 'Dreams of our Fathers' as well.

[Illa]

Sarah Palin is probably the best thing to happen to the Democratic party since George Bush's last term as president...Middle ground white America seems to be inexplicably drawn into love affairs with attractive but, incompetent people. God help that smart black guy...LOL

[laurama]

Heh. What smart black guy?

Anyway, yeah, middle America fell in love with Reagan, too, what's your point. Oh, wait, I get it. We in middle America aren't as smart or as qualified to vote - and certainly not smart enough to decide how we spend the money we earn or run for office... gotcha.

Yeah, I cling to my guns and my religion, too.

[AlisonCarnie]

There is a secret power in being a victim that is addictive ... it is going to be exceedingly interesting to see how much mileage she can suck out of the American public with this persona ... professional victims become most tiresome!