Truth-Twisting Palin Just Gets More Dangerous

Sarah Palin remains a major player on the national stage because "neither the left nor the right can get enough of her," write Richard Kim and Betsy Reed, the editors of Going Rouge, the parody that comes out the same day as the former Alaska governor's memoir, Going Rogue. They’re frankly afraid of their target, her fast-and-loose relationship with the truth, and the tenets of the political philosophy they dub "Palinism": "fact-free conspiracy, hollow patriotism and public religiosity."

“Palinism works by draping hard-right policy in a winning personal story and just-folks rhetoric,” Kim and Reed write in the Nation. “Its genius rests in its ability to magically absorb inconvenient facts and mutually contradictory realities into an unassailable personal narrative.” So, unwed teen mother Bristol Palin “is somehow a poster child for abstinence-only education.” But Palin’s reach is considerable, and the health care debate will surely cause her to “bum rush the field once again.” (More Sarah Palin stories.)