The last truly infamous book that Oprah Winfrey plugged on her program called “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey, turned out to be a million little lies and though dubbed non-fiction it was fiction through and through. Oprah and many of her viewers were upset at the fraud perpetrated by Frey and she apologized to her viewers and he apologized to her viewers and spent part of a show having Frey back on explaining why he was a liar.
So now, on the day before another infamous book comes out Nov. 16, Oprah is going to have Sarah Palin on her show, presumably to plug “Going Rogue: An American Life” which was written by a ghost (I mean ghost-written) and although it falls in the non-fiction genre many people are somewhat skeptical. Palin as you may recall was a high school basketball star, went to five colleges, was a beauty pageant contestant, was once governor of Alaska, and was John McCain’s running mate in his 2008 presidential bid.
The 400 page tome reportedly took only months to write and the term “rogue” is one of the top googled words in the country. The reason being? No one can quite figure out the connection between rogue and Palin. We were all busy thinking she was a maverick, so it kind of threw us.
The Oprah show press release is billing Palin’s interview as a “world exclusive interview” and I don’t have much more to say on that subject other than, I am not joking that is exactly what they have written in the press release. Now I know November is the big sweeps time for the networks but Oprah has swept all her competitors under the rug for the last 23 years, so that can’t possibly be the reason for the big PR blitz. It is known she got a lot of flak for not having Palin on her show while she was a candidate but Oprah was publicly backing Obama and made the decision to have no candidates running for office on her show until after the election.
Well, I guess this is after but I just don’t get the entertainment value or the news value, or the inspiration value, or the “what can we learn from her” value that Oprah’s guests typically bring to the table or the couch or the chair. Palin doesn’t sing or dance, either doesn’t read or can’t remember what she reads, can’t write (thus the ghost writer), has shown time and again a lack of speaking ability and even less command of the English language, left Alaska high and dry by quitting her governor post and appears to not have a good grasp of politics, foreign affairs etc. But, I guess if you are a “rogue” all this doesn’t really matter and that makes you fodder for Oprah’s talk show. and sales of pretty darn cheap books, Palin’s book is currently selling for $9.00 on Amazon.com , and yes that is the hardcover. Gee, I wonder if Oprah can see Alaska from her Chicago high rise?
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