The Lies of Sarah Palin: 'She's very dangerous'

Geoffrey Dunn's biography of US presidential hopeful Sarah Palin besmirches her record as a politician, impugns her integrity and excoriates her drive.

The Lies of Sarah Palin Geoffrey Dunn St. Martin's Press Dh55

As America's most infamous woman, Sarah Palin needs little introduction. But could she become president? In a country whose voters chose a B-movie actor as their commander-in-chief, and then later an ex-drug user, it would appear that in the United States, anything is possible.

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Here, Geoffrey Dunn attempts to besmirch Palin's record as a politician, impugn her integrity and excoriate her drive: "Her ambition is as unbridled as it is morally corrupt. How far will her lies take her?"

Fine, but since when was ambition a vice? And which incumbent of the Oval Office has ever been as pure as the driven snow? The more you seek to deprecate a candidate, the more you risk engendering sympathy for her.

Dunn chronicles Palin's background, her VP candidature, her record as a mayor, governor and family woman while lambasting her lack of intellectual rigour (apparently she couldn't distinguish between Great Britain and England), her gullibility (she fell for a hoax phone call by a Nicolas Sarkozy impersonator), her duplicity and her incompetence.

His style is reminiscent of a Kitty Kelley biography: punchy, bitchy and very readable.

As for Palin? To quote her former campaign manager Laura Chase: "She's scary. She's good at what she does and she's very dangerous."