Accept No Substitutes

Allow me to speculate that if you found your way to this space and stayed on, that you are in no danger of wasting your time reading the latest product of failed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's ambition--her number-one bestselling whatchamacallit, Going Rogue. Though I think Palin is not worthy of much attention and am dismayed that even intelligent analysts are contorting themselves in efforts to explain her popularity with some small but active and vocal constituency, it would be a head-in-the-sand reaction to completely ignore her. No, we can't have that, can we?

Which brings me to Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, an American Nightmare edited by Richard Kim and Betsy Reed, two partisans from that well-known pinko echo chamber, the Nation. Kim and Reed have assembled a splendid anthology of commentary and analysis regarding what at the least is an unsettling political phenomenon: a former office holder and apparent office seeker who on the face of it has none of the qualifications we normally expect from such. Contributors are some of the usual suspects--Frank Rich, Max Blumenthal, Juan Cole, and Joe Conason--and some that are not--Tom Perrotta, Hanna Rosin, Jeff Sharlet, Matt Taibbi, and Rebecca Traister.

In Going Rouge's introduction Kim and Reed offer these insights: