“Going Rogue” versus “Going Rouge.”
This week, Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, is listed as the country’s Number #1 best seller. It has sold 2.7 million copies in two weeks.
Some left-wingers just can’t stand it.
I have been reading Publishers Weekly (PW) ever since the early 1970s. All my books have been reviewed there and I’ve also been interviewed in their pages. I really like this publishing industry magazine very much. True, in the last decade, I’ve noticed an increasingly left-ward tilt over there–but that might be due to my own change of mind about certain things like anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism, Islamic gender and religious apartheid, jihad and terrorism.
So, there I was, reading the latest copy of PW and what did I see? Facing the Palin title at the top of the charts, here’s what I read: “Looks like Sarah Palin might soon face some competition—in the person of Sarah Palin. As reported in PW Daily December 2, ‘Going Rouge’ the left-wing critical take on Sarah Palin, is going to bookstores after all.’ Initially published as a direct-to-consumer work, (by Nation Books) the essay collection was acquired by the Florida publisher HCI, which has announced a 50,000-copy first print.”
Only after PW’s editors presume to dazzle us with this intended print run, do they admit that the real Palin title has already sold 2.7 million copies.
PW fails to note here that the full title of the counter-Palin book is Going Rouge. An American Nightmare, or that it’s been edited by Nation magazine’s Richard Kim and Betsy Reed. (Note: This title is criticizing Palin for presumably using her good looks to run for office. She is not a real rogue, she is merely using rouge, makeup, to seduce the country.)
I can’t remember when PW has done something like this before on their Bestseller Chart. Yes, they might write about the best-selling author’s other titles or film tie-ins or quote from the book itself opposite it’s place on the List—but to try to piggyback the anti-Palin book onto the Palin book itself—well, what does that say?
The leftards want to make money. PW wants to help them. PW views Nation’s parasitic power grab as newsworthy. Indeed, the Kim-Reed anthology seems to be selling. Not bestselling like Palin, but still selling on Amazon.
But there is more. Nation magazine and PW can’t stand Palin’s prominence. They want her attention, platform, sheer power for one of their own spokeswomen, someone more like…themselves, at least a Democrat, if not an outright Stalinist; maybe they want to resurrect Emma Goldman (an old hero of mine) or even Madame Defarge (not one of mine) to run for the American Presidency. Even Obama has not turned out to be as left as they might desire.
The women who are Ivy League educated and bi-coastal can’t stand it that a woman whom they view as a floozy/upstart has upstaged them on the national political stage since, after all, it was their liberal-left philosophies that initially shattered some political glass ceilings. (They have a point here).
Now mind you: I have not yet read Palin’s book.
But I have decried the utterly sexist ways in which women, including feminists, have treated both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. In print. On TV. At private dinner parties.
As the author of Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, the widespread existence of female-female envy, competition, sabotage, and internalized sexism does not surprise me. It is a very serious subject—one that we ignore or deny at our peril. Even first Lady Michelle Obama came in for some scathing criticism from women concerning her choice of fashion.
Amazingly enough, Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman was originally published by Nation Books/Nation magazine. I had a strong and supportive male editor who had to buck extraordinary opposition from—you guessed it: The feminist women at Nation Magazine. It has now been republished, with a new Introduction, by Chicago Review Press and is out there, influencing hearts and minds.
Girls, Ladies, Rogues, and Rouge-Wearers: We do not have to mock, denigrate, insult, viciously attack someone just because she dresses in a way we don’t like or holds an opinion with which we disagree. I don’t agree with Palin on certain key issues. I love what she says about America and Israel–but, as one of my trusted readers has pointed out, her past association with Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan leaves room for doubt.
God knows, Obama has had a host of previous associations that are highly questionable.
Still, can’t a good woman walk and chew gum at the same time?
**Update: This just in from one of my readers: “Judith.”
“Yesterday I went to the Barnes & Noble on the Upper West side at Lincoln Center in NY & approached the main info desk for the Palin book. Unfamiliar w/ the cover, the attendant din’t dissuade me from purchasing the phony Palin leftist book which they featured on the counter. That book had a picture of palin & titled “Going Rouge” as well. The real Palin book was located in the back of the store. If i wasn’t suspicious of this lefty store, I might have purchased the phoney book first, thinking it was the real thing. After all, why would B&N feature the phoney book & hide the real thing? When obama’s book was selling, this same store created a shrine to him…the windows were plastered w/ Obama paraphernalia, pictures, video & an Obama cut-out greeted you, bombarded you, when you entered the door.”
**Update: This also just in:
Palin has been pelted by tomatoes at one of her booksignings in Minnesota. According to Donald Douglas, at AmericanPowerblog, the tomatoes hit a police officer instead and the thrower has been arrested. However, he notes the approval and incitement to riot about Palin at various blogsites.
“But from the comments at Democratic Underground, “Wow. Where do we send money to help with his legal bills?,” and “Excellent,” and “Shoulda waved a gun.”
And at Gawker, “Who is the Hero Who Threw Tomatoes at Sarah Palin?,” and “In Defense of Throwing Tomatoes at Sarah Palin.”
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