Charismatic Palin holds her own on the page

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Sarah Palin seems to be enjoying her book tour. (AP PHOTO)

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(AP PHOTO)

Going Rogue

An American Life

By Sarah Palin

HarperCollins, 413 pages, $35

A cynical newspaperwoman might open Sarah Palin's memoir holding her nose.

To this demographic, the former Alaska governor represents the worst of entertainment politics, a packaged coy and flirty gal who can birth a baby, shoot a moose, ride a Ski-doo and become vice-president of the United States without having her lipstick wear off.

Many North Americans saw her through a Tina Fey prism of golly-gee-shucks-isms interspersed with the sort of patriotic twaddle that makes liberals very uncomfortable.

But a funny thing happened on the way through the book. She became, if not likable, at least three-dimensional. She filled out the caricature and become more than a 15-second sound bite.

Of course it's her book. If she can't make herself sound appealing, she's no kind of politician. And she's some politician.

The Palin mythology includes a childhood that vaguely includes prospectors, dance hall girls and summers spent smelling the crabapple trees. Dad was a teacher, not a gold miner, but that's dealt with swiftly.

Palin sticks to her folksiness script describing how she and her siblings "scrapped like wolverines."

She trots out all the set pieces: a love of church and school, a fondness for reading Scripture, a willingness to examine feminism.

"I didn't subscribe to all the radical mantras of that early feminist era," she writes, "but reasoned arguments for equal opportunity resonated with me."

She meets Todd, becomes pregnant and the myth continues. "Like a pioneer woman, I would bravely deliver our first born," she writes.

She would go on to deliver four more, including the daughter she hoped would appear on the Fourth of July.

To get the patriotism rolling, she went out for a canoe paddle. Baby Willow held on for another day, ungrateful brat.

Palin's entry into Alaska politics seems to just happen. She's the right gal at the right time.

She's asked to run for city council and wins. Then she becomes mayor of Wasilla. Then she runs for lieutenant governor of Alaska and, dang, loses.

Finally, she became governor of the state. This is a synopsis of the early years and lacks many of the Bible references, comments on motherhood, slams against Big Oil and a declaration the candidate is not ambitious but purposeful.

A hundred pages in, Going Rogue turns into an exercise in getting even. She slaps down an opponent as "a wealthy, effete young chap." She rags on the Senate Rules Committee for not letting daughter Willow bring her puppy into the Capitol Building.

But Palin saves her real ire for those she perceives stood in the path of her ascension to the American vice-presidency.

It's a group that includes but is not limited to liberals, the media, John McCain's team, TV broadcaster Katie Couric, broadcaster Charlie Gibson (she is more famous than he), some kooks back in Alaska, the sap who was her public safety commissioner ... well, the list goes on and on.

The "paid operatives" around McCain "were building up a stock of half-truths and innuendos concerning not just me, but each other to ensure that in the case of defeat, blame could be laid and somebody else's feet."

With this book, she's letting folks know it's not sticking to her snowmobile boots. Sarah Palin, to use her own expression, doesn't take "bull crap" from anyone.

The pregnancy of her teenage daughter Bristol is covered briefly.

The name of Bristol's erstwhile fiancé (and current Playgirl model) is never mentioned. Palin believes, with justification, he's already mined enough D-level celebrity as a sperm donor.

Palin holds her head up, sticks her chin out and dares you to take your best shot.

It doesn't matter how hard your punch is. Sarah Palin is like one of those inflatable clown dolls that fall over and pops back up smiling.

It's impossible to think she'd take another run at the vice-presidency. But if she's half as charismatic in person as she is on the pages of her memoir, it would be a mistake to count her out.

Free Press columnist Lindor Reynolds would not shoot a moose, cannot paddle a canoe and usually forgets her lipstick.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 28, 2009 H9