Sarah Palin Serves Up a Healthy Serving of Venom in Her Christmas Book

[DonViejo]

By Michelle Cottle November 16th 20135:45 AM

She didn’t write about ‘Protecting the Heart of Christmas’ at all—instead, the eternally offended governor may have penned the perfect manual for another holiday altogether: Festivus.

Initially I planned to ignore this week’s release of Good Tidings and Great Joy, Sarah Palin’s book waging war on the war on Christmas. Few political hucksters milking the culture war for an easy buck peddle antics more shopworn than the annual fear-mongering that secularist Scrooges are coming for our creches.

But then I couldn’t stop wondering: What happens when the Queen of Grievance takes up arms on behalf of the Prince of Peace’s birthday?

I’ll tell you what happens. Pure magic.

Don’t misunderstand. Palin’s book is neither well-written nor informative on either a political or a theological level. She does what plenty before her have done: scour the news for any cases of holiday-themed lawsuits or political scuffles, even ones where Christmas emerges triumphant, and whip them into a towering soufflé of proof that Jesus’s, and maybe even Santa’s, days are numbered. Her favorite conceit is to weave unconnected news snippets into over-the-top fantasy sequences—some set in the future! That allows her to mash up real-world episodes with more baroque scenarios sprung from the fever swamps of her imagination (like the lad docked points for using the word “Christmas” in a school essay), jack up the outrage factor with moralizing dialogue, and then proclaim: See, it’s all really happening!

But to focus on Palin’s narrative or polemic gifts is to miss the point. The book is not, as the subtitle maternally suggests, about “Protecting the Heart of Christmas.” As with pretty much everything the former governor does, this is all about Venting the Spleen of Sarah. And that’s what makes it so gosh darn refreshing. Screw those treacly holiday offerings aiming to melt your heart or lift your spirits. Dickens? Bah, humbug. It’s a Wonderful Life? Sentimental swill. That tear-jerking “Christmas Shoes” song so nakedly exploitative that it makes you want to take a blowtorch to your ears? ’Nuff said. Good Tidings and Great Joy gives the finger to all that, offering instead Palin at her toxic best: snippy, snarky, snide, and thoroughly pissed off.

full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/16/sarah-palin-serves-up-a-healthy-serving-of-venom-in-her-christmas-book.html

[madrchsod]

1. the review almost makes me want to read her book.....

maybe when it hits the dollar bin at dollar general i`ll pick it up.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Took the words out of my mouth.

I DID read "going Rouge" or what ever the hell it was.

I was torn in reading it.
Should I read the whole thing at once, and get it over with before it burns a hole thru my brain?
or take it more slowly to avoid long lasting twitches of the logic side of my head?

Well, as it turned out... it was so damn funny I read certain paragraphs over and over, amazed at the word salad.
It became a game to figure out the REAL point of her convoluted thinking.
I even trapped poor Mr. Dixie at the dinner table with it, challenging him to offer a translation.
After bouts of tear inducing laughter, we found ourselves sitting in wondrous contemplation that the English language could be used to produce such mangled syntax, fact free ideas and mind boggling stupidity.
We decided at one point it had to be satire, and the ghost writer was really very very clever.

I saved a copy of it, imagining myself saying to future grand children " would you belive there was a time when people in this country were so dumb that they actually voted for this twit for public office?"

Then Rob Ford came along, making my point moot.

[bobclark86]

4. I liked her "LOOK AT MEE!!!!" 'documentary'

Undefeated. I got it for free (still think I overpaid somewhere between tree fiddy or a buck three-eighty), and I've never seen that good of a snow-job before. It makes me almost want to vote for her... until I realize she's a vapid idiot who couldn't run one of the smallest of states without cracking within two years.

[zbdent]

2. With Palin's PhD in it, she could lecture Madonna on media wh*ring ...

I mean, "shameless self-promotion" ...

[polichick]

5. Psycho Sarah's Tidings of Good Cheer...

Her heart is at least two sizes too small!

[Grammy23]

6. Saw on the news last night that Sarah was due in town today for a book signing.....

At Books-A-Million this a.m. at 9. I figure that will be good for a lead on tonight's local news. I'll try to remember to check in and see how much police presence was required to handle the mobs who turned out to get a copy/get it signed. This IS Pensacola, after all, so a lot of her fan base is right here in NW Flori-duh. Gag me.....

[Brother Buzz]

7. Careful you don't get mistaken for the press and get locked up

Reporters covering Sarah Palin book-signing are locked in a room at Walmart

Coffee and snacks for reporters being kept away from Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin is signing books today at a Walmart near Wausau, Wisconsin. There’s a big religious-music-in-schools controversy there, so it makes sense that the former Alaska governor would stop by to promote her book about "protecting the heart of Christmas."

It’s no surprise, too, that Palin – with the help of Walmart – would keep reporters at a distance.

"About 8 media members and myself now locked in back room," Wausau Daily Herald reporter Theresa Clift, who is covering the Palin event, tweeted this morning. "We aren’t allowed to talk to guests here to see Palin."

An hour later she posted: "All media will be escorted off the property after we get five minutes seeing Palin, we are told."

http://jimromenesko.com/2013/11/14/reporters-covering-sarah-palin-book-signing-are-locked-in-a-room-at-walmart/

[Beaverhausen]

8. Amazon reviews don't disappoint

Format: Hardcover
It's my favorite time of year again! It comes earlier every year and grows in strength every time. Is it Thanksgiving? No. Christmas? Closer.

It's the War on Christmas, that festive time of year when we reflect on the true meaning of making sure other people know there is a war against Christmas.

What would you say is the greatest threat to the greatest of holidays Jesus gave to us? Is it over-commercialisation, which Charlie Brown was complaining about back in the '60s? Or the fact that Christmas shopping next year will start just after St. Patrick's Day? Or just the general un-Christmas like behavior of people fighting for parking spaces and hot new toys at the mall while ignoring their families at home?

If you answered any of the above three, you're probably one of those godless liberals who need this book. No my friend, the answer of course is those atheists, bah-humbuging this joyous time for all of us and trying to take it back to the Roman Saturnalia, where men would give each other gifts, drink and fornicate with each other. Wouldn't those sodomites forcing equal marriage on us love that?

Sarah Palin, truly the voice of our grandparent's generation, bravely sets out to right this wrong. Christmas isn't about sharing the holiday quietly with your family. It's about shoving it down the throats of people who don't believe (or don't believe hard enough), and creating animosity and fear so we get rid of those people stopping us from spreading a holiday about peace and good will to all men.

This is a book necessary for this day and age, not just a cheap cash-in that can be rolled out every holiday until consistency=tradition. I will share this book with my loved years every year, and keep it prominently on my shelf right next to my copy of Ayn Rand's It's a Wonderful Life, where Mr. Potter is praised for his cleverness, and Clarence lets George kill himself for creating a culture of dependency.

[jmowreader]

9. My favorite part is her whining about the 2008 campaign

She says her privacy was stripped away.

Dearie, your running mate crossed the Delaware with General Washington, and he had cancer twelve times. If he got elected you'd be president within a year.

They probably wouldn't have done it except the last time a dipshit got elected president he started two wars and bankrupted the country.