Is Palin tour the first step of her campaign?

By James Werrell - jwerrell@heraldonline.com

I usually am not crazy about columns that begin, “Webster's defines …”

Offering a dictionary definition always has struck me as a lame way to lead off a commentary. Couldn't the writer have thought of a better way to launch the column?

Then again, sometimes dictionary definitions can be eerily apt. So, in that vein, Webster's defines “rogue” as “an unprincipled person: scoundrel.” A rogue, according to Webster's, also can be “a vicious and solitary animal, as an elephant that has separated itself from its herd.”

My interest in the definition, of course, stems from the title of Sarah Palin's book, “Going Rogue,” released this week to much fanfare. Book-signing events have been covered slavishly by the media, and both pundits and people mentioned in the book have commented on it, many of them unkindly.

Palin, who labels herself a “real American,” has limited her book promotions to real America, which is anywhere but a big city. While many book tours might begin in New York City, the “Going Rogue” tour kicked off in Grand Rapids, Mich., where adoring fans started lining up in freezing weather at 5 a.m. for a chance to meet the failed vice presidential candidate and resigned governor of Alaska.

The tour also hit Ft. Wayne and Noblesville, Ind., and Roanoke, Va. Palin offered not only signatures but remarks at each stop, leading some to speculate that this might also be a traveling political rally of sorts, maybe even the kickoff for a run for the presidency in 2012.

While Palin's celebrity quotient still is high, it's hard to believe that she would write a book like this if she really intends to run for president. According to those who have read it, the book consists almost entirely of a whiny vendetta, an endless list of those who did her wrong, including much of Sen. John McCain's campaign staff, and improbable excuses for her mistakes.

Granted, these reviews might be tinged by bias or envy. But McCain's people have called much of Palin's account of the campaign flat-out fiction.

Palin also blunders in a way that is all too common these days but nonetheless hard to believe: She offers new and contradictory versions of things she has said on the record or on camera and makes assertions that can easily be disproven with a fact check.

For example, she paints herself in the book as being extremely frugal when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, requesting only low-price hotel rooms as opposed to the “high-end, robe-and-slippers” hotels. But her own travel records show that she and her daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers standard) for a five-hour women's leadership conference in 2007. Cost of the room: $707.29-per-night.

(She apparently could give Mark Sanford a run for his money on state travel expenses.)

In the book, Palin praises Ronald Reagan for handling an even worse recession than the one we are in now. “He showed us how to get out of one. If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes and slay the death tax once and for all.”

Except that Reagan's recession lasted for only 16 months, and this one already is nearly two years old. And Reagan didn't repeal the inheritance tax, which some refer to as the death tax. And capital gains taxes are lower now than under Reagan.

These points might seem trivial, but careful readers have documented a lot more of them. In too many cases, what she says simply doesn't jibe with the truth.

So, she is either lying or lazy, neither of which befits someone who might want to be president.

Palin also reportedly devotes an inordinate portion of her book to trashing McCain campaign workers who had the task of getting her ready for prime time. If she's actually seriously considering a run for the White House (which, by the way, she discounts), why would she burn her political bridges like that?

Why would she separate herself from the herd of other elephants?

Some say Palin is not qualified to be president and that she should just settle for a job as a TV talk show host. I strongly disagree with that; I don't think she has the talent to be a talk show host.

Nonetheless, let me be among the first to endorse her as the Republican standard-bearer in 2012. And here's hoping the tea-baggers get their wish and Glenn Beck is the other name on the ticket.

What a dream team! For the Democrats.