Rogue Wave

Sarah Palin is beginning a book tour to promote her new book Going Rogue through the American heartland with stops in places like Noblesville, Indiana, and Roanoke, Virginia, what she calls "real America" cities. New York and Washington are off the list. With an appearance on Oprah on Monday and a five part interview with Barbara Walters, she’ll garner a lot of national attention in the US in the coming week.

But given Sarah Palin’s contentious position within the Republican Party, you have to wonder what the Republican National Committee (RNC) thinks of the attention. They can’t be happy with the “fact check” of her book by the Associated Press. It’s online at the New York Times.

One example:
PALIN: Says she made frugality a point when travelling on state business as Alaska governor, asking ''only'' for reasonably priced rooms and not ''often'' going for the ''high-end, robe-and-slippers'' hotels.

THE FACTS: Although travel records indicate she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) overlooking New York City's Central Park for a five-hour women's leadership conference in October 2007. With air fare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000. Event organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her daughter. The governor billed her state more than $20,000 for her children's travel, including to events where they had not been invited, and in some cases later amended expense reports to specify that they had been on official business.

In her book, she fires salvos at McCain campaign organizers. And she doesn't stop there. It's already gotten ugly.

All this can’t be a good for Republicans. Or is it? Maybe distancing themselves from her, allowing Palin to again put her foot in her mouth, is just what the doctor ordered. It appears that she has support within the Republican Party but none of it for her candidacy in 2012.

Methinks that somewhere, Rush Limbaugh and the RNC are smiling.