You would've had to have spent the last two years living in a cave somewhere to have avoided being a witness to the rapid rise to prominence of Sarah Palin, the once obscure governor of Alaska who was rocketed into the public consciousness after John McCain tapped her to be his Republican running mate in the 2008 presidential election which sent Barack Obama to the White House. From the fire of her initial speech in Minnesota, to being spectacularly parodied by Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live, she was, for a solid six months, everywhere: canonized and vilified, profiled and pilloried. The family, the reality TV show, the elevation of social network to a political platform... The noise is, now, so loud that the actual person is buried underneath layers of analysis, exposure and spin, by Ms. Palin and by the media obsessed with her. So what's one to do if one wishes to know more about this most controversial figure dominating the political scene? No biography of her published since the Palin brand went nuclear can be trusted. Ms. Palin is famous for giving away little to those she doesn't trust. And certainly we can't trust her own autobiography because no one can write objectively about their own failings. The only option is to stretch back in time, before the phenomenon and seize upon a portrait written prior to the uproar. Maybe here we can find a few answers.
Ms. Johnson, a resident of Alaska, has assembled a fairly complete portrait of a woman who rose out of political obscurity to challenge and threaten Alaska's deeply entrenched political establishment. She catalogues the ways in which Ms. Palin risked her political future to confront what she viewed as corruption and wrongheadedness, a courage which earned her allies and enemies. A momentum for her upward mobility begins to accrue, we're introduced to Ms. Palin's expansive family and her personal ethos, both of which play starring roles in her political life. But as much as Ms. Palin dominates the narrative, Alaska also shines. The beautiful and stark remoteness of the place has clearly had an impact on its residents, including Palin whose family seems far more physically active and filled with the spirit of the frontier than any other political family I can think of.
From knocking on doors to townhall meetings, from her small offices to the governor's seat, Ms. Johnson gets a look at the life of the materfamilias of a hardworking family which does not seem at all obsessed by ideology. This is worthy work and I can see, from this, how Ms. Palin was popular in her home state prior to 2008, but there are deficiencies here too. For instance, there's lots of credit thrown Ms. Palin's way for running on an ethics-in-government platform, but no discussion at all of Troopergate. What's more, Ms. Johnson's drawing of Ms. Palin as a non-ideological crusader for good government is completely incongruous with what we know of the current Ms. Palin who is drenched in ideology. So did Ms. Johnson miss the obvious, or did the last two years change this self-described hockey mom who never wastes an opportunity to tout her own values?
We'll probably never know Ms. Palin. She's too isolated from an everyday life and the lens through which we view her is too coated in preconceptions to ever get a clear picture. But to the extent that any snapshot can be taken, Ms. Johnson has managed it. But I needed more shrewdness from the author, more discernment. Too much mouthpiece and not enough objective assessment. Informative, but suspiciously subjective. (3/5 Stars)
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