Well, this should come as no surprise: Politico’s Ben Smith has written an article “unmasking” the co-author of Gov. Palin’s forthcoming book, in the process attempting to portray the Governor as unpalatable to Independents and harshly partisan:
Sarah Palin’s most consequential choice since leaving the White House may be her co-author – a staunch conservative, devoted evangelical Christian, and intensely partisan Republican from far, far outside the Beltway.
Lynn Vincent spent the summer working with Palin on a closely-guarded 400 page memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life.” The book is due out from HarperCollins November 17 – but it shot to the top of the Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists Wednesday as word of its publication spread.
Vincent’s past projects include co-writing the memoir of General William Boykin, who blasted the media and President George W. Bush alike for ending his career over his casting the war on terror in overtly religious terms. Her most political book, “Donkey Cons,” describes the Democratic Party since its inception as “pro-gangster” and the “party of treason and subversion.” Her work for World Magazine, where she was an editor, includes a description of President Barack Obama as the “minority survivor” of the “black genocide” – that is, abortion.
Palin’s choice of Vincent suggests that hers will be, emphatically, a partisan tract. And it is of a piece with a post-election posture in which the nation’s most intensely popular, and most intensely unpopular, Republican has chosen to deepen her bond with her base at the cost of antipathy from the independent voters who decide presidential elections.
“The success of this book will rise and fall on who much it appeals to the Christian right,” Nelson said. She called Vincent “a smart choice,” if a surprising one, given that Palin was represented in her dealings with publisher HarperCollins by the ultimate Beltway insider, lawyer Robert Barnett, who also handles Obama’s book projects and those of dozens of other Washington eminences.
…The 2006 “Donkey Cons”, published by the Christian house Thomas Nelson, is the only book on which she’s listed as the first author, with conservative blogger Robert Stacy McCain. It’s a romp through the history of the Democratic Party, beginning with Aaron Burr (“federal fugitive” and “ruthless killer”) and aimed at proving that “the true history of the Democratic party is a tale of dishonesty, crime and corruption.”
McCain (no relation to the Arizona senator) didn’t respond to an email from POLITICO, but brushed off
to the Washington Independent’s any attempt to link Vincent to his own controversial past remarks on race.…She’s also been – unlike Palin – an outspoken foe of homosexuality.
“In decades past, men and women routinely brushed off fleeting thoughts of homosexual behavior. Now, though, gay activists have succeeded in planting a seed that says people not only can but should follow such thoughts with exploration and action,” Vincent warned last year.
Vincent’s posture on the confrontational, conservative right matches Palin’s post election stand, in which she has powerfully secured her standing as a leading figure of the Republican party while doing little to broaden her appeal beyond the party’s base.
How convenient that Smith launches an all-out assault on the possibility of Palin accomplishing what she needs to do to become a viable national contender – winning over Independents – shortly after the Governor delivers an uncharacteristic (from the media’s point of view) speech that contains very little of the fierce “right-wing rhetoric” the media have associated with her? This article provides further proof that the media have become a laughingstock, entirely negligent of impartiality and committed to one-sided reporting.
September 30th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
I don’t think this is an illegitimate issue.
This is bizarre: “In decades past, men and women routinely brushed off fleeting thoughts of homosexual behavior. Now, though, gay activists have succeeded in planting a seed that says people not only can but should follow such thoughts with exploration and action,” Vincent warned last year.
What that tells me is that Vincent has had gay thoughts and “brushed them off.” Palin has made similar remarks about a friend of hers.
September 30th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Book is going to sell well – good for Palin.
Doesn’t mean much about her candidacy for President.
September 30th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Oh yeah, and the homosexuality part of the article is quite troubling. If Palin takes a solid stance against gays and gay rights in the book, I can finally hate strongly dislike her.
September 30th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Alex and Kevin,
I understand your apprehension, but look at Palin’s record:
Although you have justifiable concerns about Vincent’s views on homosexuality, Palin’s record appears principled yet consistent with Constitutional concerns (I believe she complied with the AK Supreme Court directive and vetoed the bill on Constitutional grounds).
http://tinyurl.com/y8gmamh
September 30th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
The strategy is so simple; brand the collaborator as a wacko; then accuse her of writing the book and then ascribe her ideas to Palin and claim that Sarah is her puppet. Unfortunately it won’t work. Sarah has a body of work from the 2008 campaign, her Facebook and significant speeches such as the one in HK last week to prove that these are her ideas and that she did write the book with the help of a collaborator.
September 30th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
When in doubt how to attack Sarah Palin accuse her or her friends of being extremists or wackos. That’s been in the Dems playbook since FDR.
September 30th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Oh pluessze.
October 1st, 2009 at 5:54 am
Palin is not gonna be immune to criticism and she’s gonna have to learn how to handle.
October 1st, 2009 at 6:23 am
7 million dollars for Sarah in the book deal–cool.
October 1st, 2009 at 7:37 am
I am looking forward to reading the book, after I donate to both Sarah PAC and Team Sarah.
October 1st, 2009 at 8:46 am
I may just join you, OHIO. (I wouldn’t hold my breath, though.
)These people have become a caricature of themselves. They are obsessed with Palin. Few things would be more satisfying than to see them discomforted.
October 1st, 2009 at 8:47 am
She’s going to be rich!!! Wait, now does that mean she’s an elite?
October 1st, 2009 at 9:57 am
5. “Sarah has a body of work from the 2008 campaign,”
Sorry, Bob, that made me laugh. I think Palin would prefer that folks forgot her body of work from the last campaign.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:47 am
Governor Palin DID choose as her ghostwriter the divisive and flamethrowing author that Ben Smith said she did. You may not like the truth, but the truth is that Governor Palin appeals passionately to you and yours, and to over half of us, she is a clown.
Governor Palin is good for a laugh because her supporters are zealous idiots. I use the word precisely: you want to believe Sarah Palin has cross-over appeal, you want to believe that President Obama is not personally popular, you want to believe that America is filled with Evangelical Conformists. America is not.
There are many of you, but the rest of the country either dislikes you or fears what you would do if you came to power. Republicans play you for fools: The GOP has been anti-abortion since Roe v. Wade and abortion is still practiced by Republicans who daughters get pregnant. Re[ublicans want abortion to be legal and they want to tut-tut and claim that they oppose it.
Actually, most Evangelicals probably download pornography, cheat on their spouses, get married many times, take drugs when they are young.
As I say, you really are formal Clowns: you act the buffoon so that the rest of us can laugh at you and fear you and marginalize you. You will make Sarah Palin wealthy and she will lose so big to Obama in 2012 that you will lose all the young voters who are less and less religious every day. And the old Christians who skew elections are dying and the country is turning into a non-white nation.
I would feel sorry for you, but I know you do not practice love or imitate Christ. You just hate people and blame them for your own failures. You need a Jeremiah or Amos, but instead you get hedonist phonies like Rush Limbaugh, drug-addicted, pleasure-addicted, almost 60 year old three times married and “Family Values” NON-family or father.
Palin will take her multi-millions and laugh at you.