2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist #9 — ‘Going Rogue’ by Sarah Palin

From Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue: An American Life (Harper):

“But when the boom went bust, the golden goose still ruled the roost.”
Unless the goose was counting its chickens before they hatched instead of the clichés in this one.

Read the full review of Going Rogue.

You can also read about the Delete Key Awards at @janiceharayda on Twitter. The 10 finalists are being announced in random order, beginning with number 10. This is finalist #9 The winner and runners-up will be named on March 15.

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Does Sarah Palin Deserve a Delete Key Award for Bad Writing for ‘Going Rogue’?

The Delete Key Awards have shown through finalists James McGreevey and Newt Gingrich that neither Democrats nor Republicans have a monopoly on bad writing. Should a politician make the 2010 shortlist due out in February? I haven’t read Going Rogue, but reviews suggest that it could be a candidate. Does Sarah Palin deserve to become a finalist for a Delete Key Award for bad writing in books? If you’d like to nominate a line from Going Rogue or another book by a politician, please use the address on the “Contact” page on this site or send an message on Twitter to @janiceharayda that includes the sentence or keywords from it.

2009 Delete Key Awards Finalist #7– ‘Read All About It!’ by Laura Bush and Jenna Bush

Delete Key Awards Finalist #7 comes from Read All About It (HarperCollins, 32 pp., $17.99, ages 4–6), a picture book by Laura Bush and Jenna Bush, illustrated by Denise Brunkus:

“I say, ‘The library is a boring place! All I will meet there are stinky pages.’”

and

“Miss Toadskin thinks she can gross us out with her science experiments. But I live for that stuff!”

It happens every year! Delete Key Awards finalists try to strengthen weak sentences by adding manic exclamation points! And bad puns! How many 4-year-olds will know that a “page” is someone who reshelves books!

© Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com

Woman Says She Traded ‘Sexual Favors’ for Vote for Bush (Quote of the Day / Nancy Huff in ‘The Necklace’)

Nancy Huff makes this comment about her husband, Wayne, in The Necklace, a bestseller that tells the true story of 13 women, including Huff, who chipped in to buy a $15,000 diamond tennis necklace:

“I told Wayne, ‘I’ll make a deal with you. If you vote for Bush I’ll give you sexual favors.’ I live with a Democrat. What else could I do? Men are distracted by their little brain, as we call it.”

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Pundit Hart Seely Lampoons McCain and Obama in Verse in ‘Mrs. Goose Goes to Washington: Nursery Rhymes for the Political Barnyard’

Last year Hart Seely tweaked John McCain, Barak Obama and others in Mrs. Goose Goes to Washington: Nursery Rhymes for the Political Barnyard (Free Press, 128 pp., $12.95), a tart collection of parodies that may be due for a sales spike. His “Old John McCain” begins:

Old John McCain
Had a very fine brain
What a very fine brain had he,
He went to ’Nam,
Then he came back home,
And he ran with the GOP.
He reached for the sky,
And then faced the lie,
That a little bit nutty was he, was he …

Other parodies in the book appear on the Simon & Schuster site www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=534287&agid=2. In its wisdom, the publisher has not posted the poems about Obama and McCain nor has it enabled the “Search Inside” tool on Amazon. But you can read part of Seely’s “Hey! Let’s Vote Obama!” in the original review of Mrs. Goose Goes to Washington oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com

Sarah Palin’s Résumé in 5 Lines

Sarah Palin makes “Obama’s resume look as thick as Winston Churchill’s,” Katha Pollitt wrote last week in her blog for the Nation. Apart from serving as mayor of Wasilla, what did Palin do before being elected governor of Alaska in 2006? This résumé or C. V. appears atop her two-page listing in the respected Almanac of American Politics 2008 (National Journal Group, 2007), by Michael Barone with Richard E. Cohen:

“Elected Office: Wasilla City Cncl., 1992–1996; Wasilla Mayor, 1996-2002.

“Professional Career: Television sports reporter, 1987–1989; Co-owner, commercial fishing operation, 1988–2007; Owner, snow machine, watercraft, and all-terrain vehicle business, 1994–1997; Chairwoman, Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 2003–2004.”

Read Katha Pollitt’s “Sarah Palin, Wrong Woman for the Job” at www.thenation.com/blogs/anotherthing/351330 and a review of her essay collection Learning to Drive at www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/. Learn about the Almanac of American Politics 2008 at www.nationaljournal.com/almanac/.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com

‘Goodnight Bush’ — A Parody in the Style of a Certain Children’s Book

You could argue that you can’t satirize the man who said “I know how hard it is to put food on your family” because his actions have outstripped reality. But that hasn’t stopped Gan Golan and Erich Origen from sending up the president in their just-published parody of a certain children’s book, Goodnight Bush (Little, Brown, 48 pp., $14.99). Until I can put my hands on a copy of this one, you can learn more from the reader-reviews on www.amazon.com and from GalleyCat www.mediabistro.com/GalleyCat/, which has an article on it today.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Books the Candidates Need #2 — John McCain — ‘Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 When You’re 80 and Beyond’

John McCain will be 72 years on August 29, and if he served two terms as president, he would celebrate his 80th birthday in the White House. Would we want to spend eight years watching him sink into what Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge call “the typical decay associated with aging”? No? Then maybe somebody should send him Crowley and Lodge’s Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 When You’re 80 and Beyond (Workman, $12.95, paperback), a self-help book for men who want to avoid feeling like Father Time before their time. To meet its standards, McCain would to have to exercise at least six days a week. So those Secret Service agents who jog with George Bush may need to hold on to their running shoes.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

‘The Real Republican Dictionary’ — Humor for the Presidential Primary Season

“Patriot Act: Protecting the nation against the twin evils of terrorists and library patrons.”
— A definition from The Real Republican Dictionary

A quick primary-season reminder: Robert Lasner satirizes what he calls “Republican English” in The Real Republican Dictionary (Ig Publishing, 103 pp., $9.95, paperback) www.igpub.com, a small-format humor book that defines words from “abortion” to “zealot” from a hypothetical GOP perspective. (“Founding Fathers: Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich.”) To read the review posted on this site in June, click here www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

www.janiceharayda.com

You’re a Real Republican If …

“Patriot Act: Protecting the nation against the twin evils of terrorists and library patrons.”
— A definition from The Real Republican Dictionary

The Real Republican Dictionary. By Robert Lasner. Ig Publishing, 103 pp., $9.95, paperback.

By Janice Harayda

A friend who lives in the original blue state recently dated a man she saw as a perfect for her except for one epic flaw: He was a Republican. To cheer her up, I bought her The Real Republican Dictionary, a book that satirizes what Robert Lasner calls “Republican English” on topics from “abortion” to “zealot.” Before I could send it, they broke up. That gave me a chance to take a second look at the book and discover that it isn’t just for people who believe they’ve been tragically mismatched with an incipient Libertarian by an online dating service. Although Lasner hasn’t come out with a guide to “Democratic English,” you may be able to tell whether you’re a “real” Democrat by inverting his explanations of GOP positions.

You’re a real Republican if you agree with these definitions from The Real Republican Dictionary:

“Patriot Act: Protecting the nation against the twin evils of terrorists and library patrons.”
“Founding Fathers: Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich.”
“War: To be used only as a first resort.”
“Oil: ‘The good Lord didn’t see fit to put oil and gas only where there are freely elected democratic regimes friendly to the United States … But we go where the business is.’ Dick Cheney, Cato Institute, June 1998.”
“Culture: NASCAR.”

Published: September 2005 www.igpub.com

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

www.janiceharayda.com