(Cracks knuckles and rubs palms together briskly)

We are about to knock off the last agonizing chapter of the hardcover $19.97 bologna sandwich that some rogue calls a book.

Ready?  Let’s go.

Page 383
The drive to Fairbanks for the abdication ceremony was “magical”. The motor home was “filled with coffee.” A bunch of local reporters came to say goodbye and they were worried that once she was gone they’d be out of a job. Yes, the Palin administration was “good for business.” All that lyin’ and tabloidization and lurkin’ in driveways really pays off for the liberal media. But really, you know, as a free-market fiscal conservative it was the nicest compliment anyone could have given her.

The speech -
North to the Future! Good bye governor’s office and hello to new and wonderful ways to help the state of Alaska by quitting!

Page 384
They took off from Fairbanks and stopped to make a campfire and roast marshmallows for s’mores, and eat hot dogs.

She keeps getting asked “What does Sarah Palin stand for?” (Other than lying, blaming, air-kissing hand mirrors and quitting?) She was shaped by The Last Frontier. More shout outs to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

She’s a Republican because they have the strongest “planks.”  Todd is “not registered with any political  party for sound reasons.” (Yes, like if your wife is running for office, it’s probably a good idea to drop your 7-year membership with the secessionist party) She’s a Commonsense Conservative.

Page 385
Conservatism is a respect for moral principles. But she doesn’t think she’s more moral than anyone else. Another great quote! “Conservatives who act “holier than thou” turn my stomach.” But she’s fair because the stomach turning also applies to “elite liberals.” I guess elite conservatives like the previously name-dropped Alan Greenspan, Dick Cheney, John McCain, Jeb Bush, Fred Malek and crew make the cut. Good thing. It would be embarrassing to have your stomach turning at a swanky dinner party.

She’s a conservative because she believes among other things in the “inherent dignity of the individual.” (Unless the individual is an elite liberal, or someone disagreeing with her social philosophy)

Mini book report on Thomas Sowell’s Conflict of Visions. The problem with liberals is they believe people can become better, and we can fix things. Conservatives understand that people suck and are marinated in sin and that government can’t actually fix anything.

Page 386
The economy is bad but it will get better. Strained metaphor about Alaskan wildfires creating new growth potential. We used to have horses and buggies, now we have cars. We used to have LPs and 8-track tapes and now we have iPods.

It’s easy to promise free health care, but how will we pay for it? (Guess there are no questions asked about how we pay for war, just health)

Page 387
What happened to the Republican Party? They deserve the criticism because they’ve gotten off track. And now look what’s happened. Things are Democrat-controlled. And evil Hollis French does bad things in the legislature, like support reproductive rights.

You can’t claim to be a fiscal conservative and then increase spending (Like EVERY Republican president in the last 30 years?)

Page 388
Many people just stopped questioning government growth….until now. Because THIS administration is unprecedented in growth. (I thought it was Bush that added the entire Homeland Security bureaucracy. And spent us in to oblivion, more than any other administration EVER.)

Page 389
We spend too much money.

Page 390
Government programs encourage dependency. Tough love. Rewarding companies that are “too big to fail.” Shout out to Uncle Kurt’s ‘Bruce’s Muldoon Chevron.’ (I wonder if he’d sign my book?)

Cape & Trade should be called “Cap & Tax.” Taxes bad. You’re going to be taxed into oblivion.

Page 391
We should all be like Reagan. We need to cut taxes. You’re going to get taxed into oblivion. Reagan got us out of a recession. Reagan was brave.

Page 392
Reagan’s tax cuts worked.

The key to growing an economy is to drill for oil and gas because “God created them right underfoot beneath the American soil and under our waters.” (Yes, kids… God gave us oil. And why would he have given us oil if he didn’t want us to drill, baby drill? It’s like a big fossil fuel sacrament – Resource Creationism! Shiny black stuff made from 6,000 year old plants.  But no mention of why God made the vast majority of the blessed oil underneath Arab countries’ soil.)

It’s silly to think that we’d take any chances with the environment. We raise our kids here, so why would we mess it up, silly? (Thinking Exxon Valdez…)

Page 393
“Taken together, Alaska’s energy reserves coupled with future discoveries on our continent could yield domestic energy supplies to cover American’s needs for decades.” ( And if I take my paycheck, and add to that my lottery winnings from the future, I’m a zillionaire!)

And about war… Yes, you American’s may be “war weary” but suck it up. We need to keep our homeland safe and we have to win over there to be safe over here. We need to be able to say, “We won. You lost.” Just like Reagan.

Page 394
But there is more to guaranteeing peace and freedom than by being at war… We can help others like Israel. (Don’t think of it as giving other nations gobs of money, think of it as a Rapture accelerant) We must remain a Shining City on a Hill. She respects Obama’s leadership in reaching out to other nations… (??? Re-reading that several times just to be sure) BUT, (and you knew there had to be one) we shouldn’t “project weakness.”

If we just stay in our own country and mind our own business, the world will be more dangerous and violent. “We don’t go looking for fights, but we’re ready to face them if necessary.” (Iraq anyone?)

Page 395
We must move forward, and we should not repeat the mistakes of the past. And we move forward by looking to the past. We look to the (failed) policies of Ronald Reagan and that will fix all our problems.

A call to all Americans to … throw tea parties! (AAAAAARGH!) Go to Town Hall meetings. Vote in every single election on every single issue.

“Stand Now. Stand Together. Stand for what is right.”

(And bang your head on the desk until the pain goes away.)

EPILOGUE (aka “What I put in there to replace all that stuff I took out about Levi when he threatened to squeal)

Page 397
She is writing the book from a small apartment in California.

Piper is trying to comb her hair but it is not working. “Yeah, and it was picture day on Wednesday and Bristol wouldn’t fix my hair and I had to go to school soaking wet and I couldn’t even find a comb!” Piper says. (Hey, everyone under the bus!  Scoot over,  Bristol’s coming. Guess she’ll have to add hairdresser to her list of things to do, right after working two jobs, taking college classes, and being a single mom raising a baby at the age of 18.)

Page 398
Piper decides to wear one of Todd’s baseball caps. She interrupts her mother by yelling for her sisters to lend her some money. “I’m broke! I had to pay for Mom’s mocha again when we were down in California, and now I don’t have any quarters!” (First, Piper is 8. Second, is this bizarre little epilogue supposed to be flattering to anyone?)

Getting ready to go to the Fair. Piper barking “commands,” boys in matching jackets, Piper licking her palm and slicking Trig’s hair… (Zzzzzzzz……)

Todd says she better get home because Trig is about to walk. Trig slept through the night. Piper finds change in the laundry room. (This deceivingly tiny little Epilogue is NEVER going to END!)

Page 399
She takes a run. The sun is shining. She runs slowly. Then she had to slow down to a walk. She was happy to be in a city where nobody recognized her. (Californians were all sleeping last fall?) She thought about Track. She kept walking. She thought about Trig, and the last year and the politics. “Oh, the politics.”

Then she stopped walking. Then she sat down on the grass and prayed. “God, thank You. Thank You for Your faithfulness … always seeing us through… I don’t know if this chapter is ending (4 pages left. Thank you, God!) or just beginning, but You do, so I hand it all over to You again. Thanks for letting me do that.” More praying.

Page 400
It was surreal to go from the “trappings of power” to sitting at a kitchen table with Meg Stapleton. Quitting was liberating. She used Facebook to “call things like she saw them” and it made an impact. And just think, Facebook was created by the private sector in a dorm room at … wait for it … Harvard! (The irony of this apparently does not strike her) And this young liberal Harvard elite didn’t need a government grant to invent Facebook. She loves the Facebook.

Republicans got trounced in the last election, but she is not discouraged. If Ronald Reagan could spring from the ashes in 1976, so can we!

Page 401
The grass smelled good. What was the matter with Californians? Why weren’t they all outside running? She retied her shoelaces. She got up. Her knees creaked. She started running again, but this time she felt better because she was thinking about nice things, like thankfulness for our country. She felt hopeful and free and thankful!

But not THAT hopeful and free and thankful, though. Our country is headed in the wrong direction. She feels that Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder may become discouraged and not want to participate in the system. Both parties need to clean up their act.

Page 402
We need to make America welcoming for those that “some may not consider ‘perfect.’” Citizens are rising up and asking the government to trusht them. The government is supposed to work for us, we’re not supposed to work for the government. (I thought in a Democracy, we were the government.) People want to “throw the bums out of Washington,” both Democrats and Republicans.

Page 403
She thinks back on Michigan where she first “went rogue.” Now, she didn’t want to stop running!

She’s going to head back to Alaska and sit at the kitchen table. God doesn’t drive parked cars. She’ll gear up for hard work and new goals. She’s going to bake a cake, and show Piper where Michigan is on a map.

Page 405-408
Some guy I’m supposed to have heard of wrote an email about Palin saying she’s great. So, here it is, and Palin says “I hope you get a good laugh, as well!” (Oh, good! Humor! I need a good laugh about now.)

She did good things, including beating Frank Murkowski, single-handedly exterminating the Corrupt Bastards Club. (And here we thought it was the FBI), firing the chef, and dismissing her security detail in her last trimester of pregnancy because she was packing heat. She thought about a gas line in a new way (where IS that thing?), and she wants Alaska to be on 50% renewable energy by 2020.

She wanted to go back and work for Alaska but “the haters wouldn’t let her.” “Now, these adolescent screechers are obviously not scuba divers. And no one ever told them what happens when you continually jab and pester a barracuda. Without warning, it will spin around and tear your face off.”

(Yeah, that was hilarious! [dabbing my eyes] That part about tearing your face off? What a riot.)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

“I’m very glad this writing exercise is over.” (Me too!) “I love to write, but not about myself.” (OK, now THAT’s funny!) The next time she writes a book, the focus will not be on her. (Next time?!? Noooooooo!)

Long list of people. She’s not the only one in the family who has interesting (and some Alaskany) kids’ names – Payton, Lauden, Karcher, Happy, Kier, McKinley, Heath and Teko. Denali, Brooks, Skyler, Camryn, Isha. Thanks to Lynn Vincent “for her indispensible work getting the words on paper.” To her kids’ teachers – “thanks for your patience with our unconventional schedules, and despite some political opinons held by their mom, thank you for mentoring and loving the Palin kids anyway.”

Thanks to her friends because she “couldn’t do a thing without your generous help with the kids – babysitting, carpooling, overnights, diaper changing, storybook reading and arts & crafts entertainment.” Kristan Cole, Kris Perry, Thomas Van Flein, Meg Stapleton. Cabinet members, mom & pop businesses, Todd’s “slope buddies.” “The Prayer Warriors from Wasilla to Washington to Winnipeg, it is your intercession that allows me to stand today.” Valley Pastors Prayer Network.

“A special shout-out to airline flight attendants (you know why).” (HUH??)

Special needs community who are lucky because God touched them in “unique ways.”

Fred Malek, Conservatives4Palin, Team Sarah, 2012 Draft Sarah Committee (!!!)

To “media professionals”  like Glenn Beck, Greta Van Susteren, Rush Limbaugh- “please keep making the idiots’ heads spin.” (Whose idiot head would Jesus spin?)

And finally to her immediate family. “I breathe you.”

She knows there is a God. Her life is in his hands. Everyone should let God take over their lives. She’s thankful for “His majestic creation called Alaska” and for his “touch on America.” (I knew it! I just KNEW God was an American!) “By His grace, an American life is an extraordinary life.”

The End.

I cannot believe I made it.

And corks pop at Mudflats Central.

Thanks for coming along on the “wild ride” through this mind-numbing, stomach-churning, brain-bleeding, eye-gouging, ear-poking, head-banging exercise in wading through and endless, steaming pile of words that were cobbled together for maximum delusional effect.  You were with me through the lies of omission, the lies of inclusion, the revisionist history, the fairy tale myths, all seen through the pretty pink fireweed colored glasses of the new self-proclaimed leader of the “commonsense conservative movement.”

And now, I bid you adieu for the evening.  I have a large jar full of warm soapy water and a loofah pad waiting for my weary shrivelled brain.  A quick rinse with a nice Shiraz, and a pat dry with a soft fluffy pillow and it will be as good as new.