Palin has been all up in our national grill since Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — gee, thanks — plucked her out of North Star obscurity to make her his running mate. So, what more about the bestselling author, reality-TV star, Fox News political analyst, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee do we need to know? The interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric didn’t clue us in to much of what we needed to know? “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” wasn’t enough?
This film comes at a time when Palin’s image and reputation are getting hammered. Yesterday came the revelation that her speechwriter and domestic policy adviser, Rebecca Mansour, expressed some tart thoughts about Palin’s adversaries and others via Twitter. A not-so-pretty tell-all book from her former aide Frank Bailey that used more than 50,000 Yahoo account e-mails was released this week. Levi Johnston, Palin’s grandbaby’s daddy, has a book due out in September that will describe his “life in Sarah Palin’s crosshairs.” The Palin movie will try very hard to capture the gubernatorial magic depicted in Joshua Green’s piece for the Atlantic. Unfortunately for her it’s entitled, “The Tragedy of Sarah Palin.”
As this chart of Palin’s popularity ratings makes plain, there are a lot of minds to change. No movie, no matter how favorable the depiction, can reverse this trend fast enough to make Palin a viable candidate for president. Not that she’s really running, of course.
