Well, I guess I know what to get Kim for Christmas now. Sarah Palin has signed a book deal. Not surprisingly, it is with a publishing company owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News.

Apparently Sarah is pleased as this gives her a forum to craft her own reality. She was quoted as saying, “There have been so many things written and said through mainstream media that have not been accurate, and it will be nice through an unfiltered forum to get to speak truthfully about who we are and what we stand for and what Alaska is all about.” She’s probably right about that. Palin is at her best when someone else writes the actual words and has the actual ideas and she just gets to spout them out and take credit for them. In this manner, a book is an ideal venue for her. I’m sure she’ll have a ghost writer and many political consultants helping her organize her story. And I’m sure the GOP faithful will gobble up the book when it hits the stands.

What I can’t fathom is that most books like this also involve a publicity tour where they parade the author around the talk show circuit. But it’s hard to script those interviews, and everytime poor Sarah has to rely on her own wits she winds up falling victim to “gotcha journalism.” Will she require a second book to explain her way out of the interviews she gave for the first one? On the plus side, perhaps she’ll get booked on the Daily Show or the Colbert Report. That would be fun.

Still, I can’t help thinking she’d have gotten just as much positive publicity by being Miss September on the 2010 Girls of the GOP Swimsuit Calendar, and there would have been less talking. That’s really when she shines… when she’s quiet.