Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin

A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years

By: Frank Bailey, Ken Morris, Jeanne Devon

Narrated by: Holter Graham

Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

This explosive, up-close view of Sarah Palin comes from an inner-circle confidant who shares surprising information about how Sarah dealt with staff and perceived "enemies" and the discrepancy between what she said and what she did.

©2011 Frank Bailey, Ken Morris (P)2011 Simon & Schuster

Well worth a listen

I'm not fond of reviews that rehash plots, but for those who are reading this review and are curious about the book, here goes:

Author falls for Palin completely as soon as she announces for Governor in 2005, becoming essentially an indentured servant on her behalf from that point until she leaves Juneau. Writing the book in hindsight, he goes over the many flags he ... overlooked, being always loyal, even when she froze him out, to take him back later when she needed him (or more likely realized he knew too much). This pattern gets old quickly, but I was kept motivated by her increasingly erratic (shall we say) behavior.

At about halfway through the book, that aspect is driven home in a lengthy account of Troopergate, wherein we learn about Todd's obsession with Trooper Wooten (ex of Sarah's sister); Mr. Palin spends whole days badgering his wife's staff to have the guy fired. Bailey takes the fall for Saint Sarah at the point where the "undue influence" issue comes to a head. Other personal/political issues of the Palins take up Bailey and his colleagues' state time, until she's tapped for Bigger Things.

After her return to the job, things in the Executive Department go from bad to worse, with many examples of her poor judgement. When she finally quits citing "distractions", it wasn't so much that she was using the term as a convenient excuse, but that the distractions were pretty much all her own doing!

The narrator was quite good at investing us in Bailey's inability to handle the frustration of the experience. Much of Palin's dialogue - he really nails the voice well - comes from Twitter-ish memo-like emails, making her sound even more ... odd than when I've seen her speaking in complete sentences (not her strong point). I did feel the authors jumped around in time a bit, which may not have been so bad in reading the print version, but proved a bit confusing for the listener.

Excellent Insider Memoir

I found Frank Bailey's story fascinating and credible. Sarah Palin's ignorance was sufficiently demonstrated during the 2008 campaign, but this book answers the questions that lingered. For example, How did such an empty-headed ignoramus become the Governor of Alaska in the first place? Bailey was there and the tells it like he saw it. Reminded me of a similar book by Andrew Young, The Politician. The narrator is terrific too.

And the puzzle pieces fall into place...

I still don't understand how or why people get sucked into her cult of personality. I guess if you're an evangelical it makes sense: (You already believe it batsh*ttery theology, so why not blindly follow Sarah?) And as you will learn, the Palin-bots (her campaign workers/staff) and the Palin fans-- are ALL evangelical Christians.
Frank Bailey is no mental giant and schemer. This really isn't an "O-woe-is-me-Sarah-deceived-me" attempt to make tons of money --although, he will. This book is simply his story from his experiences and more importantly --from his email correspondences with Palin!
I have to say I came away from this book being amazed at how media savvy Sarah Palin is. I don't equate this savviness with the standard/commonly recognized definition of intelligence. She has some odd social intelligence. She knows how to manipulate the average, unread, uneducated, ill-informed American citizenry into loving her.
Read this book and get some insights into the Cult of Palin --and then be sure to vote Democrat in 2012!

Fantastic for anyone...

No matter if you are a republican or a democrat a liberal or a conservative there is something for you in this book. Believe it or not I did not find this to be a book which is pushing a political ideology. It was a book about right and wrong. It was a book that I felt really showed the immorality of Mrs. Palin, her family, and her campaign.

The only reasons I did not give it 5 stars is that there a moments clealy inserted by the co authors that are so over the top they are a little stomach turning. Like when they describe Sarah Palin as a 5 foor 5 inch Aphrodite...ew.

Inside looking out.

It's great to get a chance to get inside the real workings of the campaign, leadership (or lack there of) and fall from grace. This is a real insight to what the true driving force was behind the curtain. This is the real face of most politicians. The addiction to power and money. And just how phoney they can really be. Mr. Bailey, lesson learned!!!

Sad Man Stripper

Here's what I like about Sarah Palin: She's an American Sex Symbol over the age of forty. Our culture has precious few of those.

Everything else about her, you can keep.

So I'll confess, I was looking for some good gossip. If you're looking for good gossip too - you'll probably wind up as dissappointed (and oddly confused) as I.

Frank Bailey's book reads like a letter written by a sad, clingy ex boyfriend. He sacrificed his principles for a girl who don't love him no more. It's pretty creepy. And I have to say - given the length of the book, he doesn't really have much of a score to settle. He raised his hand and enthusiastically volunteered to compromise his own ethics for her, and she, apparently let him do that, but besides being thin-skinned and somewhat dopey (and not in love with Frank Bailey) Sarah's reputation comes out of the book the same way it went in. Better, actually, Someone took a shot at her and came up with not much.

Frank, on the other hand, makes himself look pretty bad. Imagine a sad-faced, mid-life strip show. Hard to watch and hard to look away.

I must add that the book has a lot of Church-y stuff in it that you might enjoy as little (or a lot more!) than I did. But, the writing team did a nice job with the pace and the prose.