Margaret, Chapter One of Going Rogue by Sarah Palin ends on page 62. That’s about 61 pages after it should have ended. It has approximately 19,500 words to it, but not one of them was worth reading. It’s all pure crap. If this chapter is any indication of what’s ahead, then it appears Mrs. Palin plans to spend the rest of her life getting even with the world by rewriting history.

The very first page of the book is a map of the globe as seen from the North Pole – I guess to emphasize the proximity of Alaska to Russia. Honestly honey, when is she going to learn that dog don’t hunt? Her defending us from Russia would be about as effective as Todd Palin’s preferred brand of condoms. Oh yes – Track arrived not quite 8 months after they sprinted to the courthouse to elope. I guess Sarah’s ghost writer didn’t think anyone who reads this book could count.

And oh my but did she love to read. All her life all she ever did was read, read, read. Too bad somewhere along the way she didn’t learn to write. And that college thing… Well, it seems that it took so many years and so many different colleges to get a degree because she had to work so much. And by work, she means entering beauty pageants and sleeping with Todd.

She finds a way to reference Ronald Reagan as early as page three in this chapter – which is supposedly about her childhood – and then mentions him again about a dozen more times before the chapter ends. Even her Grandpa ate jelly beans and looked remarkably like Ronald Regan. And Sarah’s favorite words – patriotic, patriot and patriotism – populate her paragraphs like children conceived out of wedlock populate her family tree.

On page two we learn that sweet little Piper, Sarah and Todd’s fourth child, is the poster child for the Alaska Right to Life group, but if you ask me, she should have been the poster child for the waning popularity of Jay Leno and late night television. I guess there’s not much to do on cold nights in Alaska except watching out for Russians and wooing Palins.

Margaret, I tried to come to this with an open mind. Really I did, sweetheart. I wanted to believe that there really was something of substance to someone who captured the imagination of millions. Even Barbara Walters has Sarah on her Top 10 list for the year. But it’s just not there, Margaret. Substance. She has none. Not even with a ghost writer. I mean how much respect can you have for a woman who describes the birth of her first son by writing, “Oh. My. Gosh. I thought I was going to die… Had any woman ever hurt this much? I didn’t think so.” Is it possible her ghost writer is a man?

But honestly, why am I so nasty about this woman? First I called her a bitch and now I am suggesting her knees are together about as often has Hillary Clinton appears in public with Bill. Look. There I go again sounding like a dime novel. But her entire attitude and approach to life – the sheer hypocrisy of it all – just really gets my goat. Consider the following excerpt from the book which refers to a State Trooper who pulled her over for an illegal joy ride on a snow machine:

“It was Christmas Day; we were out in the middle of nowhere, a couple of kids on a snowmachine up against a big dude with a gun and a badge. I couldn’t help but wondering about his priorities, if he really didn’t have more important things to do, like catching a bad guy, or helping a poor old lady haul in her firewood for the night. Looking back, maybe that was my first brush with the skewed priorities of government.” Page. 18

And that, dear Margaret, sums up my issue with Sarah Palin and so many others like her. They are so quick to look for the “bad guys” in everyone else never seeing the one staring back at them in the mirror each morning.

Here’s hoping Chapter Two has something worth writing about because I’ve only got a few years left on this earth and I hate that even a few hours are being wasted on this exercise in fertility. Pun intended. I mean it. Really.