How going Rouge is actually Un-Rogue.

Former Governor Sarah Palin owned the media last week. That was until Oprah dropped her bombshell about the world ending in 2011. But Palin did own most of the week. Everyone talked about her book and subsequent book tour. My wife scoffed when she saw a photo of a man reading her book in our local paper. She doesn’t understand what the Palin appeal is. People who aren’t fans even purchased the book out of curiosity. Personally my curiosity doesn’t need to be satisfied. I can find a better way to spend $28.99 than purchasing a book. It’s not that I hate Palin and have some visceral reaction toward her. I just think that she is overrated. I don’t believe she is a smart as her handlers would like for us to believe. Katie Couric tripped her up with a question my 3 year-old Goddaughter could answer. And because of the interview, she blames Couric for part of the media bias against her. Booo Freaking Hooo!!! One minute Palin is playing the shy fragile white flower and the next she is a modern day Annie Oakley. All while she is feeding us the “Rogue” dinner special every time she is on TV. So what does it mean to be a Rouge?


A Rogue is an individual that is unpredictable and operates outside of their normal confines. Palin’s book tour is skipping major metropolitan cities in lieu of smaller ones. Apparently she or her handlers has decided this is the best way to keep pushing home that Rogue theme. Her whole persona has been crafted around being the everyday “Beck Sue Jane.” She is synonymous with Apple Pies, God and an occasional moose carcass lying around the house. During the 2008 campaign, she poo poo’d every person that lived in walking distance of a downtown metropolitan area. If you lived in the city, you were thought of as not being a “real” American. This provided the suggestion that only Southerners, Midwesterners and Alaskans were real and authentic citizens of America. Is there really a debate as to if the residents of South Bronx are real or not? I’m sure they would have something to say about that.


If Palin wants to do something unorthodox, she should do something that will take her off the grid. Instead of taking her message to Mayberry, she should park her tour bus in the heart of Times Square. She should go to Detroit, Oakland, Houston, and Atlanta. She should go where people would not expect her to go. She should address the people that she belittled on the campaign trail. The same people that she alluded to as “Un-American” are the same ones she should talk to. Why? Because then she would be someone that “operates out of their normal confines.” It’s easy to go where you are going to get love but what about when you go into the Lions’ Den? Palin was the Republican nominee to possibly be the second person in charge of the Free World. She was going to be the vice president of a country that has all types of citizens. And many of those citizens don’t share her views of the world. What better way to strike out on your own than to deal with people that are put off by you. I would love to see Palin answer her critics while peddling her book. It would really show me what she is truly made of. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Now those are words that were spoken by a true rogue.