Going AWAY

You heard the media buzz; you heard the banter in the office or perhaps on the train to work, but did you really think it would come to fruition? Yeah, me neither. But like any completely forgettable low budget horror film, it will... much sooner than anyone thought, on November 17th, to be exact. Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue (more on that ridiculous title later) is getting fast-tracked for pre-Christmas release, apparently because her publishers woke up and realized that her pond of quickly evaporating relevance will be completely Death Valley bone dry by spring of 2010, the original release window. Oh, and also because it turns out that it didn't take nearly as long for her to "write" the 4oo+ pages as everyone thought it would. Of course, she had a ghost writer, and she quit her job, and doesn't really spend any time with her kids, so—lucky day—it was actually a breeze! You betcha!

Yep, fire up the presses and get the first (and likely, only) 1.5 million copies on the shelves, while Glenn Beck and Nancy Grace still have jobs and can drive sales for her. "What? The title sucks? We know the title sucks! But there's no time, I tell you, NO TIME to think of a better one. Print it now! NOW!" you can imagine her publisher and agent screaming in unison.

The word 'rogue' has no positive connotations, anywhere, and this is most obvious in the dictionary; 1. dishonest or unprincipled; 2. savage or destructive tendencies; 3. inferior or defective specimen. When used to describe waves at sea, the word rogue is an obvious and ominous negative. Only in the crippled and gasping GOP, where a babbling redneck cheerleader somehow becomes a political ripple, does the word rogue seem to hold some invisible promise. Oh sure, these 1.5 million copies will be purchased, no question; they will be purchased by the 1.5 million Americans who are under the impression that Palin has anything worthwhile to say, and they will all likely be autographed by Sarah herself, since she has absolutely nothing else to do or anywhere to go. And by springtime of next year, when all the overprint copies are in the get-the-hell-out-now $1.99 bin at the bookstore, Sarah will have finally GONE AWAY.