Is Sarah Palin still wearing the clothing paid for by RNC donors?

Over the weekend Sarah Palin made her way to Canada for another $100,000+ speech on behalf of Americans and of course Alaska. In fact this was just one more stop on the ‘Progressing Pocketbook Alaska Without The Need For A Title’ tour. Never mind it was pretty much the same old tired speech and talking points first written for her by the McCain team or that she’s done little to learn anything new.

While this was pretty much just another of the recycled canned campaign speeches, true to form Sarah needed to tell a little story about how she and the Canadians have a lot in common. In Ohio she and God had ‘writing notes on their hand’ in common, in Canada the commonality is that she too knows what socialist Canadian healthcare is like because her family took advantage of it when she was a child.

Palin remarked:

“My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not – this was in the ’60s – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.”

While that statement alone is getting quite a bit of attention, it is also coming to light as it most often does shortly after a Palin speech that she told a different version of a previously told story. It seems to happen quite often with Palin. She no sooner uttered those words when…………………………

A few different older versions of that story quickly started to emerge.

First story:

In a 2007 report in the Skagway News, Palin said her family travelled south from the town by ferry to Juneau, Alaska, so that her brother could get treatment after burning his foot when jumping through a fire.

And from the Skagway News:

Her brother burned his foot badly jumping through a fire, and her mother had to take him down to Juneau on the ferry to the hospital. “All these years later, that’s still what people have to rely on here in some instances,” she said.

Enter Chuck Heath once again who is now trying to get his daughter out of hot water:

“There was no road out of there at that time,” said retired teacher Chuck Heath, reached by phone in Wasilla. “The ferry schedule was very erratic. We had no doctor in Skagway. The plane schedule was very erratic. The winds dictated whether the planes could come in or not.”

So Palin’ recollection of childhood events might not be so great. But one thing we can always count on Sarah Palin to provide us with is hypocrisy and stretching the truth. While railing against Healthcare for Americans as ‘socialist’ we discover that Sarah’s husband Todd and all of her children and grandchildren qualify for and take full advantage of free socialist healthcare since Mr. Todd Palin is 1/8th Yup’ik Eskimo.

Because Tripp’s grandfather Todd is descendant from the Yup’ik Eskimo, his children and grandchildren are registered with the Curyung Tribal Council, part of the Bristol Bay Native Association, and thus eligible for government-run health insurance through the Indian Health Service. All “lineal descendants” of Native enrollees are eligible for the program.

So, while everyone is focusing on her statement about her family traveling to Canada for medical treatment it appears the mainstream media and followers of all things Palin didn’t happen to notice what Mrs. Palin was wearing for her speech in Calgary.

If they had they might have recognized that the very outfit she was wearing is one that was bought and paid for by the RNC per the McCain campaign. She can be seen here in photos from a campaign stop in Lancaster, PA on Oct. 18, 2008. She is wearing the same outfit here that she wore for her speech just last week in Calgary.

But that can’t be because Sarah assured us during a campaign stop in Tampa in 2008 that she had no intention of even taking those clothes back to Alaska let alone keeping them or wearing them.

In 2008 Palin told the crowd in Tampa, FL after Elizabeth Hasselbeck defended Palin’s shopping spree while introducing her:

“This whole thing with the wardrobe, you know I have tried to just ignore it because it is so ridiculous, but I am glad now that Elisabeth brought it up, cause it gives me an opportunity without the filter of the media to get to tell you the whole clothes thing,” she said.

“Those clothes, they are not my property. Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the RNC purchased, I’m not taking them with me. I am back to wearing my own clothes from my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska. You’d think – not that I would even have to address the issue because, as Elisabeth is suggesting, the double standard here it’s – gosh, we don’t even want to waste our time.”

When someone from the RNC remarked a few months after the campaign had ended that not all of the clothing had been accounted for or returned but they were working on it. So again, Sarah enlists Dad to remind people that his daughter is just too honest to ever consider keeping those clothes.

“She was just frantically…trying to sort stuff out,” Heath said. “That’s the problem, you know, the kids lose underwear, and everything has to be accounted for”.

Ok so let’s for fairness sake give Sarah a pass and allow for the fact that she might have overlooked this particular outfit when returning things to the RNC. I’d think she’d recognize something that was purchased for her during that time, but I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until digging for pictures from the campaign when I first recognized that outfit. I recognized it because I remembered seeing a photo of her showing off the jacket after the story came out that the RNC has purchased clothing for her and her whole brood.

Okay so I thought I’d give her a pass on one but while looking for photos of the jacket but then came across more pictures of her on the campaign trail with McCain in a sweater that seemed recently familiar to me. I was right. I’d seen Sarah in the same sweater when Sarah and her daughter Bristol went on the Oprah show in January via satellite from Mrs. Palin’s home. They discussed Bristol’s newly found celibacy and her vow to remain a born-again virgin until marriage, how hard it is to raise a child when your Mother is a millionaire and so on.

Many took note of Sarah’s hairstyle that day which was so different from her usual look that even Oprah had to remark on the style.

Maybe the hair was meant to keep us from noticing that she was wearing what appears to be another item purchased for her to wear while campaigning by the McCain campaign with funds from the Republican Committee. But no notice of her recycled outfit which photos show her wearing in Kansas City, Mo in a September 2008 campaign stop.

Most didn’t buy it when Palin said she’d returned the clothing at the end of the campaign as she originally stated, especially once her father tripped up and told the press that they were running around the house trying to find all the stuff. Sarah has yet to learn that her father should be banned from speaking with the press. Just say no comment Pops otherwise you leave Sarah looking like a liar. More damage control, then the spin from both Palin and the RNC that every single item had been returned and accounted for. To date the RNC has never publicly shared just what was purchased and what all was returned.

I knew when all the discussion of whether the clothing had been returned or not that this day would eventually come and after some time passed she’d feel safe trying to sneak them back into her own wardrobe. Sarah Palin’s is too easy to read and all too transparent in her behavior.

She’s proven to be a liar and someone very challenged by the truth of any kind. We also know the Palin’s have no problem taking full advantage of anything they can get their hands on and have no problem breaking the law or doing things ‘their way’ regardless of the consequences.

How many more re-emerging outfits paid for by hardworking donors to the RNC will we see Sarah parading around in? How many more canned speeches need to be debunked and fact checked before people stop paying this woman enormous amounts of money to tell lies and give speeches of absolutely no substance?

Unfortunately I think it will be quite some time since our media no longer seems to be about anything of substance and no longer employs real journalists?

Going Rogue: The Reviews Keep Coming

The Oprah-Palin interview has aired and the web is on fire with the various reviews and discoveries from not only the interview but also from all the reviews of the excerpts that have been obtained by various sources.

Considering the amount of information out there it would take all night to put it into context so instead I’ll list several and you can choose which articles to review. I might add that some of what’s being reported and discussed today is pretty revealing and emotions are running high. I’ve gathered from several of the Alaskan blogs that have followed her career from day one that she might end up wishing she never, ever wrote this book.

We’ll have to wait and see what’s next.

Palin Lied To Oprah…Or Hannity

In out takes posted by Oprah today, Sarah Palin states she made the decision to run with Todd. It was a “mommy decision”…and she told her children after the she had decided to run.

While campaigning last year, Palin went in to great detail about polling her children and not asking Track…about the decision to run. She answers this question in the first minute.

Rogue Nuggets from the Pages of ‘Going Rogue.’ (must read post with several portion lifted from the book)

Well, thanks to my fairy godperson, I’ve landed the motherlode of Going Rogue pages, and have served you up a tasty breakfast smorgasbord of easily digestible Rogue nuggets. Let’s start with the most revolting quote:“There was a bright spot in Philly, and his name was Joe Lieberman.”

It will be hard to top that one.

But here, for your reading pleasure is some wonderful comment fodder from the pages of Going Rogue.

Page 76
Her friends threw her a baby shower for Piper at a shooting range, with a cake the shape of an airplane. Piper’s middle name is Indi for “Independence.” (AIP anyone?) Starts railing on Anne Kilkenny whose letter about Sarah Palin to her friends went viral on email and was posted at numerous sites on line. Calls her a “Birkenstock-and-granola Berkeley grad.” She was friends with the evil town librarian and the police chief with whom Palin was “mixing it up.”

Page 233
Says she wasn’t used to fancy hotel rooms (Fancy hotel room anyone?),but learned that Bristol’s pregnancy had been outed while she was brushing her teeth looking at the flat screen TV embedded in the bathroom mirror. If only she had been able to be up front about it from the start, but the McCain campaign botched it.

Repeats the lie that Barack Obama told the media to lay off his family and they “obeyed him”, but they trashed her family. In actuality, Obama had asked the media to lay off HER family.

Page 237
On this page, Wasilla mayoral rival John Stein gets slammed for telling Time Magazine that Palin sought to ban books in the Wasilla Library.

Unbelievably, she also asserts that in the media “It was one lie after another – from rape kits to Bridge to Nowhere. All easy enough to disprove if the press had done its job.” WOW. Blames the Alaska GOP and Randy Ruedrich for not correcting it. Yes, it’s her lie and she’s stickin’ with it. Fortunately it remains easy to fact check HERE and HERE. Slams media and bloggers for saying that if she couldn’t control her own daughter how could she be president, and saying that her philosophy about teaching abstinence was hypocritical, and didn’t work just because… it’s hypocritical and it doesn’t work.

Page 336
John McCain says he’s going to thank America. She says “I want to thank YOU!” He says, NO SPEECH. She finally gets that there will be no speech. Time to get on stage, but she’s not ready and doesn’t know where the giant entourage from all across Alaska is. She wants to go on stage with the whole family. She walks on stage with Todd and everyone she could find and the speech still in her hand. She wants five generations of her family there.

Aw, She Just Couldn’t Help Herself – Sarah does Oprah – Updated w/Levi Reax

On Oprah Sarah says that Levi lied when he said that he had lived at the Palin home with Bristol.
Tonight Levi holds his ground:

“That’s total bullsh*t. I did [live with the Palin family] for a few months, then we split up and that was it.”

He is currently gearing up for a custody battle. “I think this interview is really gonna kick up some things,” he says. “I don’t think she wanted to do that.”

I think Levi’s pissed . . .

FYI – Apparently, Levi didn’t go the full monty 😉

“Going Rogue”: Sarah Palin trashes Katie Couric on 8 full pages – and has something nice to say about Steve Schmidt! – UPDATE!

What an exciting day we had yesterday! The unexpected email from Christopher Goff, Senior Vice President at Harper Collins, made our day. Many things happened as a result: We made lots of new and important friends, received a large amount of new visitors and the blogsphere showed its muscles and closed ranks in solidarity (many thanks again to Andrew Sullivan, Wonkette and Buzzflash for linking to us). With the new attention we used the unexpected opportunity to get one of our most important messages across to a greatly enlarged audience: That Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy with Trig (it’s a FACT, in case you didn’t know yet).

Christopher Goff, can we get more emails from you, please?

Palingates and Linda Kellen Biegel’s blog “Celtic Diva” were singled out by Harper Collins- why? Other blogs and websites also published extensive excerpts of Sarah Palin’s “Book of Lies” – but did they receive a letter by our new friend Christopher Goff? Noooooooooo!

The investigative bloggers are “the” thorn in Sarah Palin’s side. We are not afraid of the Quitter Queen, and we are ready to expose her many lies – after all, the MSM has failed on many levels and has for example conveniently overlooked the fact that from an objective point of view, the facts regarding her pregnancy with Trig DO NOT ADD UP. They never have. Believe me: I would not be so stupid to write here as a FACT in public that Sarah Palin had faked her pregancy if I didn’t know with 100% certainty that it is indeed a FACT.

Mr Van Flein, do you hear me?

Palin Onstage, Still Moving Off Message

There were no questions about the Bush doctrine, but Sarah Palin’s appearance Monday on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to promote her memoir looked less like a celebratory comeback than a redo of the presidential campaign.

For all her aplomb and telegenic charm, Ms. Palin still had the hunted look and defensive crouch she wore in television interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson last year. And it would seem that the pain of those tongue-tied encounters was not exorcised by writing “Going Rogue: An American Life,” a tell-all book that blamed the McCain staff for the way it “handled” her on the trail.

When Ms. Winfrey pressed Ms. Palin about why she would not mention the names of newspapers or magazines she read when Ms. Couric asked her to, Ms. Palin said she found the CBS anchor’s persistence “annoying.” Still looking annoyed, she recalled how she left a rally “pumped up” and aglow, only to pull back the curtain and discover Ms. Couric waiting with camera and crew, or as she put it sourly, “There’s the perky one again.”

Ms. Winfrey, who didn’t hide her surprise at Ms. Palin’s impolitic wording, came to Ms. Couric’s defense, noting, “You’re pretty perky too.”

“Going Rogue”: Sarah Palin mentions the “Trig Truthers”! How nice of her! Also: How Piper and her family were harrassed by evil reporters!

First, I would like to say a big “thank you” to “Gawker”, who linked to us today, as well as to the “Daily Kos”, who in a very informative diary post also included a link and even cited from our blogpost! It’s great to see solidarity in the blogsphere in this important and difficult fight.

Gawker also posted four scanned pages of “Going Rogue” – NAUGHTY! But then as we know, Christopher Goff from Harper Collins is only going after the non-commercial citizen blogs, not after the commercial blogs like Gawker and Wonkette who certainly would have some sharphish lawyers and large funds behind them. But maybe we also have some battle-hardened lawyers in the background, who would just be too happy to take on Sarah Palin – you never know…!

So – does Sarah Palin mention the Trig Truthers in her book “Going Rogue”?

Yes she does! Hurray

Palin to be Sued? with New Vids Update: Proof positive Palin Lied, on tape!

Sorry folks, another Sarah Palin diary.

Bear with me though, you won’t have seen a lot of this.

Some of it is funny, some of it will make you furious.

I’m not much of a writer, and this will probably be disjointed, I am doing my best to give you a clear picture of the current state of play.

Monday Comment: Digging Two Graves

On Friday after they received an advance copy of Sarah Palin’s new book, the Associated Press called me to get a response from the two hundred plus words that Alaska’s former 1/2 term governor dedicated to me.

My favorite passage as read to me by Rachel D’Oro at the AP was when Palin referred to me as an “effete chap.”

An effete chap? Who am I, Nick Carraway in the Great Gatsby? And by the way, when did Palin start using 17th century Latin in her dialogue?

According to the brief excerpts I’ve heard, the book seems like it’s less about her and more about blaming everybody around her for all of her short comings. From her lack of intelligence to the word getting out about her pregnant daughter, no matter what the problem or criticism, it’s always somebody elses fault and never hers.

This in and of itself is rich in irony. After all, how many real rogues complain about being hemmed in by the actions of others?

Isn’t that the antithesis of a rogue?

However, once the book is on the street beginning Tuesday, those throughout Palin’s 413 page pity party that suffer the wild blows of her imagination will come forward with guns blazing to refute the revisionist history Palin has penned.

From the brief passages that Palin has written about me in her book, the terms unmitigated lies, narcissistic delusions and libel came to mind first.

Obviously she never learned the timely Confucius warning:

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

Beginning Tuesday…the people whom Palin has attacked in her book will start reaching for their own shovels.

Sarah Palin Weaves a Tangled Web with Going Rogue

Ouch!

The advance copies of Sarah Palin’s kind of autiobiography are turning out to unearth some real doozies for people that care about the truth.

The McCain camp is out Saturday morning with their opinion of the book; McCain Camp Book ‘Petty and Pathetic’.

And former McCain Campaign Manager Steve Schmidt had some choice words about Palin’s characterizations of those working in the campaign.

“It’s all fiction,” he said.

Former McCain strategist John Weaver slammed Palin for using the book for “petty and pathetic” score-settling.

“Sarah Palin reminds me of Jimmy Stewart in the movie ‘Harvey,’ complete with imaginary conversations. All books like these are revisionist and self-serving, by definition,” Weaver wrote in an email to POLITICO. “But the score-settling by someone who wants to be considered a serious national player is petty and pathetic.”

“The problem wasn’t who her interview was with, the problem was her interview,” he added. “Couric asked no trick questions. This just seems to be an attempt to obscure as bad a performance since Roger Mudd asked Ted Kennedy that simple question.”

The Swamp – Palin Unbottled

A good wrap up of the book that is described as one long complaint about the McCain campaign, and its staffers. After a strange diatribe about the campaign’s penchant for Atkins diet bars, she recounts the reaction to the infamous prank call from a fake President Nicholas Sarkozy. ”Right away, the phones started ringing. One of the first calls was [Steve] Schmidt, and the force of his screaming blew my hair back. “How can anyone be so stupid?! Why would the president of France call a vice presidential candidate a few days out?!” And here’s where it starts to get really interesting.

Sarah Palin speaking to Oprah Winfrey

Previews of her upcoming Oprah November 16th interview haven’t been so well received either and seem to open up another can of worms when it comes to her recent feuding with the father of her grandchild Levi Johnston.

Johnston has recently claimed that Sarah Palin has been interfering with the arrangements he and Bristol have regarding visitation with his son which has made it difficult to see his son if she is involved. He also stated that Sarah Palin isn’t the person she pretends to be and that if need be to get his time with his son, he’ll tell all that he knows about Sarah and her behavior as governor.

Johnston has been in New York busy with his photo shoot for Playgirl and spending a lot of time doing interviews over the last two weeks, meeting with Donald Trump, receiving an unearned award and busy talking with Inside Edition.

Levi tells Inside Edition that Palin’s laugh at the beginning of Oprah’s question about him proves the answer that followed was untrue.

The New York Times Book Review:

All in all, Ms. Palin emerges from “Going Rogue” as an eager player in the blame game, thoroughly ungrateful toward the McCain campaign for putting her on the national stage. As for the McCain campaign, it often feels like a desperate and cynical operation, willing to make a risky Hail Mary pass in order to try to score a tactical win, instead of making a considered judgment as to who might be genuinely qualified to sit a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

The Huffinton Post has also obtained e-mails from the McCain campaign both sent to and by Sarah Palin while Vice Presidential candidate. The e-mails further confirm that Sarah Palin has a real problem telling the truth.

The Associated Press has been busy fact checking some of Palin’s statements.
Here’s just a snippet of what they found so far: These are just a few of the inconsistencies, but you can follow the link to read the rest by following the link

Palin goes adrift, at times, on more contemporary issues, too. She criticizes President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush — a package she seemed to support at the time.

PALIN: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking “only” for reasonably priced rooms and not “often” going for the “high-end, robe-and-slippers” hotels.

THE FACTS: Although travel records indicate she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) overlooking New York City’s Central Park for a five-hour women’s leadership conference in October 2007. With air fare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000. Event organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her daughter. The governor billed her state more than $20,000 for her children’s travel, including to events where they had not been invited, and in some cases later amended expense reports to specify that they had been on official business.
___
PALIN: Boasts that she ran her campaign for governor on small donations, mostly from first-time givers, and turned back large checks from big donors if her campaign perceived a conflict of interest.

THE FACTS: Of the roughly $1.3 million she raised for her primary and general election campaigns for governor, more than half came from people and political action committees giving at least $500, according to an AP analysis of her campaign finance reports. The maximum that individual donors could give was $1,000; $2,000 for a PAC. Of the rest, about $76,000 came from Republican Party committees.

She accepted $1,000 each from a state senator and his wife and $30 from a state representative in the weeks after the two Republican lawmakers’ offices were raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into a powerful Alaska oilfield services company. After AP reported those donations during the presidential campaign, she gave a comparative sum to charity.
___
PALIN: Rails against taxpayer-financed bailouts, which she attributes to Obama. She recounts telling daughter Bristol that to succeed in business, “you’ll have to be brave enough to fail.”

THE FACTS: Palin is blurring the lines between Obama’s stimulus plan — a $787 billion package of tax cuts, state aid, social programs and government contracts — and the federal bailout that Republican presidential candidate John McCain voted for and President George W. Bush signed.

Palin’s views on bailouts appeared to evolve as McCain’s vice presidential running mate. In September 2008, she said “taxpayers cannot be looked to as the bailout, as the solution, to the problems on Wall Street.” A week later, she said “ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy.”

During the vice presidential debate in October, Palin praised McCain for being “instrumental in bringing folks together” to pass the $700 billion bailout. After that, she said “it is a time of crisis and government did have to step in.”
___
PALIN: Says Ronald Reagan faced an even worse recession than the one that appears to be ending now, and “showed us how to get out of one. If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes and slay the death tax once and for all.”

THE FACTS: The estate tax, which some call the death tax, was not repealed under Reagan and capital gains taxes are lower now than when Reagan was president. Economists overwhelmingly say the current recession is far worse. The recession Reagan faced lasted for 16 months; this one is in its 23rd month. The recession of the early 1980s did not have a financial meltdown. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent, worse than the October 2009 high of 10.2 percent, but the jobless rate is still expected to climb.
___
PALIN: She says her team overseeing the development of a natural gas pipeline set up an open, competitive bidding process that allowed any company to compete for the right to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48.

THE FACTS: Palin characterized the pipeline deal the same way before an AP investigation found her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited a company with ties to her administration, TransCanada Corp. Despite promises and legal guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders during the process, Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate, including TransCanada.
___
PALIN: Writes about a city councilman in Wasilla, Alaska, who owned a garbage truck company and tried to push through an ordinance requiring residents of new subdivisions to pay for trash removal instead of taking it to the dump for free — this to illustrate conflicts of interest she stood against as a public servant.

THE FACTS: As Wasilla mayor, Palin pressed for a special zoning exception so she could sell her family’s $327,000 house, then did not keep a promise to remove a potential fire hazard on the property.

She asked the city council to loosen rules for snow machine races when she and her husband owned a snow machine store, and cast a tie-breaking vote to exempt taxes on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one. But she stepped away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband competes.
___
PALIN: Welcomes last year’s Supreme Court decision deciding punitive damages for victims of the nation’s largest oil spill tragedy, the Exxon Valdez disaster, stating it had taken 20 years to achieve victory. As governor, she says, she’d had the state argue in favor of the victims, and she says the court’s ruling went “in favor of the people.” Finally, she writes, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.

THE FACTS: That response is at odds with her reaction at the time to the ruling, which resolved the long-running case by reducing punitive damages for victims to $500 million from $2.5 billion. Environmentalists and plaintiffs’ lawyers decried the ruling as a slap at the victims and Palin herself said she was “extremely disappointed.” She said the justices had gutted a jury decision favoring higher damage awards, the Anchorage Daily News reported. “It’s tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision,” she said, noting many had died “while waiting for justice.”
___
PALIN: Describing her resistance to federal stimulus money, Palin describes Alaska as a practical, libertarian haven of independent Americans who don’t want “help” from government busybodies.

THE FACTS: Alaska is also one of the states most dependent on federal subsidies, receiving much more assistance from Washington than it pays in federal taxes. A study for the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that in 2005, the state received $1.84 for every dollar it sent to Washington.

Reports are also coming out now that Palin’s co-author has written some pretty offensive things in the past as well.

Then we have author Geoffery Dunne’s take on Palin’s book and it isn’t any prettier. Dunne is also in the process of completing a book on Sarah Palin’s life and has been spending a lot of time in Alaska. This again is only a portion of what he found. Follow the link to see other finds.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

And that’s just for starters.

Andrew Sullivan has learned from excerpts in the book that Sarah Palin was obsessed with his blog the Daily Dish and wanted to sue him for some of his posts regarding her fifth pregnancy and the birth of her son Trig. Palin’s obsession with Sullivan and his blog was reported first here.

Sarah Palin speaks to Barbara Walters

Ms. Palin was particularly angry at bloggers and the media, associates said, for speculation that her baby Trig was really the child of Bristol, her daughter.

At one point, according to people familiar with the discussions, Ms. Palin considered pursuing a libel suit against at least one blogger, the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan. Ms. Palin decided against such a move because of the publicity it would bring.

Mr. Sullivan, in response, said asking “factually verifiable questions is obviously not libel.”

A spokeswoman for Ms. Palin didn’t respond to email requests seeking comment.

We also have a preview of her previously recorded interviews with Barbara Walters that will air next week as she kicks off her book tour. One has to ask why a woman who repeatedly asked the media to leaver her children alone and only focus on her, then why are two of the children sitting right beside her during the interview?

The interviews with Barbara and Oprah are the only mainstream interviews that Palin will be doing on the book tour. All others that she will be interviewing with like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, BFF Greta Van Susteren, Bill O’Reilly and the like won’t challenge her or discuss subjects they know she’s weak on. Do you think we’ll see Piper or Willow sitting beside her for those interviews?

Did Sarah Palin bring those girls to sit front row at Oprah and right next to her on the couch with Barbara to stave off any serious discussions are personal questions?

Was Sarah dishonest in her answer to Barbara Walters when Barbara asked if Sarah Palin and her husband Todd knew that Bristol was sexually active before she informed then she was pregnant?

Could it have something to do with this post Just a Hunch on Romney and Palin: Is there a Trig Truther Story on The Horizon? at the right wing blog It’s a Kwazy Life

Is this why someone who obviously still considers themself to be a serious contender of the political world bring their young children to interviews, pretty them up and then sit them on the couch right next to you?

Meanwhile those is Alaska have also been busy pouring over Palin’s book Going Rogue and verifying her claims and statements from the book.

Blue Oasis – Has an analysis of how the books Sarah from Alaska, The Persecution of Sarah Palin, and Going Rogue handle the topic of the ethics complaints filed against her, the state records requests, and her tangle with the Alaska Public Offices Commission – No titilating gossip, but instead issues that matter a whole lot more. There’s no one better than Linda Kellen Biegel, former AK state employee at picking apart the details and giving a great analysis of this tangled mess.

Shannyn Moore: Just a Girl from Homer – One of the plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case, she notes, “So Sarah was against the decision before she couldn’t remember it before she was for it. And now, courtesy of Going Rogue, Sarah Palin manages to insult and injure Alaskans who will never be made whole with yet another one of her documented lies.” Videos included.

The Anchorage Daily News – Too many out there are watching and waiting for Palin’s emails that were requested via state records requests, to be revealed. The law is clear, and the state is breaking it – over, and over, and over. Palin is gone but now the big mess she left has been dumped squarely in the lap of the next administration who continues to stall. Paul Jenkins speculates that “enterprising young lawyers will have to haul the state into court for failure to obey its own law.”

While we can’t feel very confident in much of what Sarah Palin and her ghostwriter present as fact in her autobiography Going Rogue, one thing we can be sure of…………….the next week will be a crazy one. Sarah’s book comes out with Levi’s photo spread coming out the same day, while Howard Stern, Joy Behart and John Stewart court Levi to visit their shows. Sarah is already on her facebook page complaining

We’ve heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, “fact checking” research! Imagine that – 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to “fact check” what’s going on with Sheik Mohammed’s trial, Pelosi’s health care takeover costs, Hasan’s associations, etc.

Saturated in Sarah

This holiday season the internet and bookstores will be overloaded in Sarah Palin books and novelty items. Not only is Sarah’s ghostwritten autobiography coming out November 17th but many other books and various items will be available for holiday shoppers to choose from. Question is what will we learn about Sarah Palin.

Until then, you can spend your holiday dollars trying to look like Sarah Palin for Halloween. Hate her or love her Palin seems to be a big Halloween item this year. The Sarah Palin mask is especially big this year.

Or you can send a HalLoween or or Thanksgiving greeting from Sarah or one featuring Sarah. Your friends and family will love it.

Another book coming out November 17th is ORbooks Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare, compiled by Richard Kim and Betsy Reed, two top editors of the left-leaning weekly The Nation, and includes essays by Nation regulars like Katrina vanden Heuvel, Naomi Klein, and Katha Pollitt. Other contributors are Jeanne Devon of the Alaskan blog The Mudflats, Max Blumenthal, Shannyn Moore, Linda Hirshman, Naomi Klein, Dahlia Lithwick, Amanda Marcotte and many others. This will be a very enjoyable book.

According to its website it’s the first release from OR Books, a fledgling outfit founded earlier this year by publishing veterans John Oakes and Colin Robinson that “embraces progressive change in politics, culture and the way we do business”.

On that very same day you can pick up a copy of a kid’s version of Going Rouge, so no the little ones won’t be left out of the fun.

Also expected out soon is the book Renegade: Sarah Palin’s Hatchet Man by one of Sarah’s former aides Frank Bailey known for. Frank and a co-author claim the book will be “accurate, factual and very documented.” She stated the book will tell Bailey’s “side of the story.”

Bailey became notorious in Alaska during the Troopergate scandal. He was in the thick of the scandal before most of the nation had ever heard of Sarah Palin.

Along with his deleted emails and his recorded phone call released during the Troopergate scandal, which showed him pressuring a State Trooper officer to help get Palin’s former brother-in-law fired, his behavior raised questions about just how much the governor knew about Bailey’s dirty work.

Palin denied ever knowing about the phone call and called Bailey’s action “out of bounds” and “wrong,” even though Bailey told the Trooper he was calling on behalf of both the governor and her husband. Palin punished Bailey with a two month paid leave.

According to the co-author, the title of the book was inspired by a blog written by Andrew Halco, former State Representative and one of Palin’s opponents in the Governor’s race where he labeled Bailey the governor’s hatchet man.

And writer Geoffrey Dunn will be coming out with his book soon, expected around the first of the year. Dunn has authored many columns on Sarah Palin and relocated his family to Alaska for the summer so he could spend time conducting interviews and doing research for his book.

Also coming out with a book soon is former boyfriend of Palin’s daughter Bristol. Levi Johnston has reportedly now decided he’s reading to tell more. Johnston has become a vital figure in the controversy over whether several claims Palin and the McCain Campaign were factual. To this point Johnston has been fairly respectable and credible in his claims and actions.

From this quote of Tank Jones, Johnston’s agent and manager things have changed and if so, looks like things could get quite interesting in Wasilla. Good Luck Levi. Stay Safe.

“There’s a whole lot of material he hasn’t talked about because he wanted to protect the family,” Jones says. But since the Palin’s have been talking trash about him, Levi isn’t keeping quiet anymore. “The gloves are off; everything is going to come out.”

If you’re not a big fan of reading or just want to see Palin in person, you might and we stress the word might want to put your money elsewhere and take a leap of faith that Palin will show up for the events reportedly planned over the next few months.

You can take you chances if you live in Wisconsin if Sarah Palin speaks in a Milwaukee suburb next month as part of a program presented by Wisconsin Right to Life event on November 6th.

Hold on to your extra pennies so you can share in the fun of Sarah Palin. Happy shopping!

If you’re broke but still curious you can always tune into Oprah November 16th when Palin is reportedly the featured guest, but if reputation holds true, she may not show.