Customer Reviews

The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star

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Having read through this book for as looming as I could stomach the author's twisted and inaccurate observations, I could not walk away without giving an opinion of this book. First, do NOT waste your money on this dribble. If you want to hear all about how damaged palin is by the so-called Liberal Media, just turn on fox news. Everything printed in this book has been said on the GOP's propaganda network, fox. The only thing you might be interested to learn is this; if I was to write my opinion on ANY website, the author believes I am then an "Elite Liberal Media" star. After all, most of the things discussed by the author were written by everyday day people in response to palin's speeches, her interviews and God help us all, her books. Aside from a few quotes from MSNBC's 4 Liberal leaning hosts, and Katy Couric, everything else he whines over was found in the "Comments" section of blogs and websites all over the Internet.

To be sure, palin is talked about on NEWS shows, and all over the Internet. I've yet to really understand why. Personally, I find her to be irritating, ignorant, and as vapid a human as I've ever seen in the public eye, and yet here I am writing a review of this guy's whimper-fest of a book. I guess I'm writing this because I am unimpressed with the author's argument that "Liberal Media" tried to bring palin down. That is a very stupid position. After all, if there is a NEWS story in which palin is quoted verbatim, the author uses this as an example of the Liberal Media trying to bring her down. I think it's amusing how the author never discussed the hundreds of lies spread about Democratic politicians on fox, in right leaning newspapers, and all over right wing dominated talk radio. These issues are NEVER discussed by the author as he finds more traction whining about and, whining for palin.

I say, do not waste your time reading this awful book. If you must punish yourself, borrow the book from your local library, or find it on a right wing website somewhere, odds are if you agree to take their newsletter, they will send the book for free. This is how right wing books are made to look popular, they sell, or give huge bulk shipments to right wing websites and then give them away to their subscribers. All that matters is a book shipped, it matters not one bit if it was paid for. Ship a large enough in bulk, and you've got a "Best Seller" on your hands, regardless if no money changed hands for the books. This is how so many vapid, and altogether unreadable right wing books wind up on the New York Times bestseller lists. Who said cheaters never prosper???? Just ask the newly rich princess not-too-bright of the north, sarah palin.

This book is written for the worshipful minions of the Sarah Palin myth. Mr. Continetti dutifully checks off each and every criticism that has come down the pike about former governor Palin and refutes it--whether it needs refuting or not! It is quite one-sided in its approach, and a discerning reader will feel he/she has been short-changed, even at the bargain price. But for the Palin loyalist: Priceless.Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years

This book focuses on the negative hype that most people didn't believe about Palin in the first place. What it doesn't mention are the hard facts that brought down the McCain campaign and have further turned the majority of the public against Palin as a candidate for 2012. The media is hard on all candidates and while Palin may have recieved more than herfiskr share of bad publicity the media didn't invent her unpreparedness in interviews, her inexperience or lack of knowledge, and her desertion of her most important political job thus far. She may be a nice person, good mother and loving wife, but she is not Presidential material. If she runs in 2012 the Republicans will lose again.

If you subscribe to the idea that all media is out to get conservatives you'll probably like this book. But there is not much new here. A more interesting book would compare the coverage Governor Palin received against, say the president, by comparing what are viewed to be liberal sources and conservative sources. But that is not the choice the author made.

The subtitle of the book is a little misleading. The author sites many media stories, and also includes information about how the McCain campaign mishandled her, and sabotaged her after the campaign. This is to his credit. So the book is really about how media and republican enemies have gone after her. But the subtitle probably attracts his desired audience.

There are a number of amusing statements that don't match my recollection of the events. I don't intend to pick apart the entire book, so here are three. He said her religion was dissected by the media, however the concerns about the pastor of then Senator Obama's church we not covered by the media. Uh, no. He said that VP Biden's interviewers gave him softball questions, while Katie Couric tried to trap the governor. I think if Governor Pailn had answered the question about what she reads effectively, liberals would have claimed it was a softball question. Instead, conservatives say it was a trick question. He said that Tina Fey's impression of her blurred the line of reality and comedy (that's not quite it, but I'm trying unsuccessfully to keep it short). I'm pretty sure people could tell the difference. He noted correctly that she never said she could see Alaska from her house but people thought she did. I'd say the same number of people thought this was true as the number of people that thought VP Gore said he invented the internet. The real issue in this case and what Ms. Fey was capitalizing on was that Alaska's proximity to Russia was being used by conservatives to illustrate she had foreign policy experience. But that would be a different book.

Finally, he made little distinction among traditional medial outlets, and all the crazy online outfits. The "new media" sources do not fit most people's definition of "Elite Media". But go ahead and give the book a try, although I'd recommend checking it out of the library.

Chickenhawk author jumping on the grifter express. This book sucked. Mr. fighting the culture war at home was hoping to get some love or something from the Quitbull, Palin, or hoping to get a Fox News gig. Don't waste your money

In the prologue of this book, the author includes a very powerful quote said a full year before Sarah Palin came on the national scene:

"Today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no one dares miss out."--Tony Blair, June 12, 2007.

Continetti then goes on to show how this "feral beast" of the media hunted down its new prey: Sarah Palin. He does an excellent job of documenting and debunking the lies and smears the media perpetrated against her.

Palin supporters will most likely recognize the top lies such as: Trig not being her son, her banning books, being a Buchanan supporter, or a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, and others. What may surprise and shock them (and any fair minded person) is WHO published the lies! While many may have started on extreme liberal blog sites, by hate-fueled individuals, the real tragedy is that they were introduced to main stream Americans by powerful news outlets and journalists that many Americans, including myself, trusted.

The main chapters are:

1) The Golden Ticket: When John Met Sarah
2) The Feral Beast: The Media Goes Wild
3) The Village and the City: There's No Place Like Home
4) The Ties That Bind: The Blistering Assaults on Palin's Family
5) Amazing Disgrace: How the Press Went After Palin's Faith
6) Sex and Sarah Palin: The Furious Battle over the Governor's Gender
7) The Classless Media: The Elite's Condescending Attitude Toward Ordinary Americans
8) Sarah's Choice: What's Next for Palin and her Party?

This book is a powerful wakeup call to any fair minded person. It clearly documents that "truth no longer mattered" to many in the media when it came to Sarah Palin.

My hope had been that the media would see the dangerous path they have taken, and go back to honest reporting. Unfortunately, as Sarah's own book is about to be released it looks like we're in for Round 2.

The "elite" media tried to bring Sarah Palin down by ..... asking her questions about domestic and foreign policy issues ...... by ..... asking her to explain her claims about the Bridge to Nowhere .... by ...... asking her about whether she had any second thoughts about teen abstinence in the light of her daughter's out-of-wedlock pregnancy .... etc. etc. Sorry, but if you have pretensions to be a national figure, you need to be prepared to back up your claims, explain your positions, and tell us where you stand on important domestic and foreign policy issues. Sarah Palin wasn't prepared.

The author of this book did a generally good job of correcting false information about Palin that was disseminated through out the campaign. As many people know, the media abhors a vacuum and that is exactly what they faced when presented with Palin. What do you do next? Dig for whatever you could find. Given that Palin had stepped on a few toes in the Republican Party in Alaska, it is not surprising that there was plenty of dirt to be found, as people were using her candidacy for payback.

The author also does a good job of exposing the problems within the campaign itself. They were so wrapped up with catching the media off guard with her pick as VP, they forget to give the staff the background information that would have allowed staff members to quickly squelch unsubstantiated rumors. A valuable lesson is there for future candidates.

I do think the author spent a little too much time dealing with blogs and tabloid type papers, which I don't consider viable media streams. More focus on the MSM would have made the book a better read and would have made the case stronger than it already is.

The book should be read by all those who believe Palin will be a viable candidate in the 2012 primary or general election. Many people have already made u their mind about Palin, which is unfortunate. This book might change a few minds.

Finally someone who really gets Sarah Palin, someone who writes for a Murdoch vanity project and who isn't tied to such nuisances as objective reality or, you know, facts. That's what liberals miss about Sarah Palin. They keep rudely comparing her lofty rhetoric to her squalid reality. But Sarah is bigger than that, which is why I love this book. I mean how dare the elite media ask Sarah what she reads! Talk about a trap! Or point out that the center of her campaign, her opposition to the bridge to nowhere, was an actual flat out lie. I mean how out of touch can you be? The American people want simple stories, fantasies to assuage their self satisfied laziness and here is Sarah to deliver...and the elite media want to FACT CHECK her? Are they insane? Fact check a Republican? Haven't they got the memo? Republicans have left the "reality based community" and have no plans to revisit it soon. Which again brings up back to the beauty of this book. I mean prose like this would have shined in Pravda and one has to hold back a hint of melancholy that the author missed being born young enough to write the Persecution of Stalin.

Well done, sir, perhaps you can next tackle Beria?

I felt rather ill as I read this book. The whole premise behind it is that it exposes various media assaults made on Palin during the campaign and after. Everything about her was shredded, diced and minced. NOBODY would look good under that kind of negative scrutiny. Her looks, family, religion, residence, job performance, speech, dress-everything was ridiculed without mercy. This book takes actual quotes from a variety of newspapers, blogs, TV shows etc. There have been Palin Porno movies, Palin sex dolls, saying she is NOT a woman (??), false pregnancy assertions, false affair assertions etc. You name it. It is fine not to like her or vote for her, but why be so incredibly nasty?

I think sticking to the facts is what most people really want in a journalist. The over-the-top, wild, overboard journalism demonstrated here will eventually backfire. There needs to be some responsibility in this field; it has gone too far.

I still think the reasonable facts about Palin will keep me from voting for her unless she digs in and does her homework and gets more experience. But in the future if the press start to malign any candidate the way they have Palin, I will deliberately try my best to support the candidate.