Palin's Tall Tales

Palin's book doesn't even come out until next week-- but news outlets have obtained early copies and are already fact-checking it. Over at Huff Post, Geoffrey Dunn has the run-down on the first ten lies contained in the book:

1. The Cover Byline: Palin didn't write the book by herself; she had a ghostwriter. Most books with known ghostwriters list their co-author's name on the cover-- "Going Rogue" does not.

2. The Subtitle: An American Life. Aside from her infancy, Palin has really spent very little time outside of Alaska, and according to John McCain's campaign advisors, was shockingly unfamiliar with American geography and American history.

3. Going Rogue features Palin's obsession with Katie Couric and characterizes the CBS anchor as "badgering." Palin refused to prep for the Couric interview because she was more concerned about her popularity in Alaska than about what was best for the campaign. Was it really badgering to ask what books or periodicals Palin read? Palin further claims that Couric suffered from low self-esteem. In fact, according to those close to Palin, it's the former governor who suffers from low self-esteem and frequently projects that onto other women.

4. Palin asserts that there was a "jaded aura" around McCain's political advisors once she entered the campaign. In fact, McCain's aides bent over backwards to protect Palin and to try to get her up to speed on international affairs. In addition to not knowing whether or not Africa was a continent, according to sources in the McCain campaign, Palin also didn't understand the difference between England and Great Britain. And much, much more.

5. Palin contends to have been saddled with legal bills of more than $500K resulting from what she calls "frivolous" ethics complaints filed against her. The lion's share of those bills resulted from the ethics complaint she filed against herself in a legal maneuver to sidestep the Troopergate charges being brought against her by the bipartisan Alaska Legislative Council.

6. Palin rather astonishingly claims that she was saddled with legal fees associated with her vice-presidential vetting. A) She was not vetted; B) A McCain campaign advisor says this is "categorically untrue."

7. Palin states that she found out only "minutes" before John McCain's concession speech that she would not be allowed to make remarks of her own introducing McCain. In fact, she had been told at least three times that she would not be allowed to give the speech and kept lying about it in the hopes of creating some last-minute chaos that would allow her to assume the dais.

8. Palin asserts that her effort to award a license for a natural gas transmission line was turning a "pipe dream" into a pipeline. Although she claimed otherwise in her speech at the GOP convention, there is no pipeline. It remains a pipe dream.

9. Palin implies that the McCain campaign intentionally bungled the announcement of her daughter's pregnancy and refused to let her rewrite it. In fact, the McCain campaign allowed her to rework the draft, but the original version went out accidentally.

10. Palin complains that McCain's senior advisors, most notably Steve Schmidt, forced her to "stick with the script" they provided her. In fact, Schmidt & Co. were tasked with keeping Palin from lying and misleading people throughout the campaign, from her well-documented lies about the "Bridge to Nowhere" to her duplicities about her husband Todd's assocation with the Alaska Independence Party.