Disclosure: I haven’t read Sarah Palin’s just-released book Going Rogue: An American Life. The context in which I may eventually read it would be standing up, at the Borders on Southwest Morrison, as I wait ten minutes for the light rail to arrive. I think I’ll enjoy it in that context.
I see Ms. Palin differently than a lot of progressives. I enjoy her, because I don’t see her as a politician. I see Ms. Palin as an entertainer, a fresh presence in popular culture, someone beautiful to look at who’s fairly close to my age. I find her slim figure especially impressive after five children. And she is more interesting, more unpredictable, than a movie star. I don’t think politics is her calling, but entertainment could be.
I think Ms. Palin could, off the top of my head, be Alaska’s answer to Oprah Winfrey, for example. I’m not trying to be funny. I’ve been to Alaska, and observed it to be a place of action, not deep thought. Ms. Palin’s ready-fire-aim approach to life is in sync with Alaska’s wild-west energy, and she’s highly telegenic. She could be Alaska’s interpreter, a charasmatic bridge between Alaska and the lower 48. An entertaining one. (Not all Alaskans would embrace her as their spokesperson, but consider how a lot of Americans felt from 2000 to 2008.)
My biggest problem with Alaska’s former governor is her irresponsible denial of global warming, which has already started destroying some of that state’s coastal villages, leading to their being relocated at a very high cost. As Alaska’s vast expanses of permafrost melt, they’ll release vast amounts of the methane they’ve been sequestering. (Methane is a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide, the more abundant green house gas that tends to get everyone’s attention, including mine here at Diamond-Cut Life).
In my view, if Ms. Palin were a public servant of her home state, the above would be of visible concern to her. Instead, she ignores the threats global warming pose to Alaskans and other Americans, and focuses on herself, currently her self-defined status as a rogue. Which self-absorption helps to suit her, in my view, for the worlds of popular culture and entertainment.
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Right now is definitely no time for self absorption - and really, what is the point of self definition? You are correct that action and change is what is needed here - not acting.