Last Tuesday at Town Hall, Al Gore explained that 99 percent of his
new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, is
about solutions. He then proceeded to outline each
chapter—in too-great detail—for the audience. This was a
mistake, because Our Choice speaks eloquently for itself; it’s a
brightly illustrated, easy-to-follow textbook about the importance of
environmental responsibility and energy independence.

Our Choice is even more impressive than An
Inconvenient Truth, because it’s all about improvement, with
very little of what conservatives would dub “liberal whining.” It also
reframes political issues as moral imperatives; Gore advocates the
education of young girls worldwide as a population-control issue, for
instance, and he has rock-solid figures to prove the importance of that
education. If the United Nations were to use Our Choice as an
agenda for the next decade, the world would be much better
off—cleaner, more peaceful, more prosperous—than it is
now.

Gore is a great communicator—he speaks thoughtfully and with
great exactitude—but he is not a charismatic one. His lecture was
most interesting when he spoke about himself, as when he apologized
for being a “nuclear pit bull” when he was a senator representing a
part of Tennessee that was economically dependent on a nuclear
reactor.

You won’t find those kinds of canny, self-aware statements in
Going Rogue, Sarah Palin’s memoir (published, coincidentally, on
the same day as Gore’s appearance at Town Hall). Many bloggers have
devoted themselves to uncovering all the factual inaccuracies in the
book, and there are far too many to list here. Fewer critics
have commented on Rogue‘s nasty tone. This book, ghost-written
by a best-selling evangelical Christian author named Lynn Vincent, is a
score settler and a blame passer.

A more hateful book won’t be published in 2009. Palin spends
the bulk of Rogue smearing her critics—an opponent is
dismissed as a crazy woman obsessed with falafel, and Katie Couric is
an opportunist who manipulated Palin’s interviews into incoherence. She
twice accuses the Obama campaign of stealing its “change” theme from
her early Alaskan campaigns (unsurprisingly, she doesn’t mention hope).
When she discovers that her last son has Down syndrome, she seems most
thrilled that she has a personal object lesson against pro-choicers.
(Palin also proudly, and literally, uses her daughter Piper as a
pro-life poster child.)

There is not one shred of that great conservative ideal, personal
responsibility, in Going Rogue. When she’s not wielding her
children as clubs to prove political points (or complaining that the
media can’t stop writing about her children), Palin whines about her
victimhood—at the hands of the press, McCain campaign manager
Steve Schmidt (who, she passive-aggressively notes, couldn’t refrain
from swearing in front of her children), and liberals—until the
very end. recommended

19 replies on “Constant Reader”

  5. I’m curious to know how she uses her daughter Piper – whose name I can’t even mention without rolling my eyes – as a pro-life poster child.

    Well, not curious enough to read the book.

  6. You really took one for the team here, Paul. I, too, would like to see a lengthier exposition of your thesis, but then, I really wouldn’t wish that task on anyone.

    I’ll read the book myself if I can get a hold of it by a means that doesn’t contribute to her bank account.

  10. I remember a picture of a box of Newt Gingrich’s books for sale for 50 cents at a garage sale a number of years ago. I suspect Palin’s will be for sale very cheaply soon, and the paperback will end up being sold for almost nothing. The right wing groups buy them in bulk and then give them away for donations and such, then they end up at garage sales and such.

  11. For anyone who wants to know what’s in the book without reading the thing, go to mudflats.net. AK Muckraker summarized EVERY page, added fact-checking and a good deal of snark to make the reading easier for herself and her audience.

    Constant is right, too: there will never be a more hateful book published this year. Maybe even in the next five years — that is, unless Michelle Bachmann writes one.

  13. Al gore really is an ass hat, but I really don’t see how that makes him any different than any other politician ever.

    If the government is instituting a policy, it’s because corporations will profit from it.

    Is this still the part of our history where we haven’t figured out whose side they are on yet?

    Jeez peeps.

  14. Have you noticed how everything is turning upside down – blacks becoming whites – whites becoming blacks – criminals treated like victims – victims like criminals – wrong is right and right is wrong.
    What’s wrong with the world !>!>!???
    Can’t you see how the politicians are using us to get more power – and they don’t want people like Palin in office because she believes the constitution and that politicians are servants’ of the people rather than the people are the servants of the government?
    You need to read her book and others like it with and open mind rather than hell bent on trying to hang your hat on silly little diatribes.
    I hate that most people don’t even vote and the majority of the ones that do only vote based on popularity rather than substance.
    Look at Obama – I don’t know any company that would hire him to run their company, let alone the world.
    Palin has a successful proven track record and has run an entire state. Obama – NOTHING.
    And he can’t communicate without his writers and teleprompters.
    Look who he surrounds himself with. Crooks, thieves and communists.
    You don’t agree with me? Look at the proof.
    History will show it.

  17. Paul, your reviews never feel finished. It isn’t quite good enough to just say what’s on your mind, you really do need a beginning, a middle, and an end in order for it to count as a critique, to say nothing of a complete thought. Friendly observation to a good writer.

Comments are closed.