Sarah Palin bio-op unleashed on suspecting public

October 11, 2008

palin in car Joe Hilley’s 3-week rush job was not based on any personal interviews with Palin

by Dan Bloom

WASHINGTON(RUSHPRNEWS)10/10/2008 — With Joe Hilley’s rush-job bio-op of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin published on Friday, October 10, Americans now have another book to try to size up the Alaskan governor who has been catapulted into the national spotlight by God’s very hand. Alabama-based Hilley told Fox News in a recent TV interview that the 206-page book, “Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader”, was written after his literary agent called him with a proposal to pen the book for a Christian publishing house in Michigan.

A contact at Fox News told RushPRnews that Hilley also disclosed that he never sat down for a face to face interview with Governor Palin, nor did he interview her by phone or email. So the eagerly-anticipated biography that saw its national laydown on Friday, with a first printing of some 250,000 copies, was based on secondary sources and Internet research. As a result, there won’t be much “news” in the book, although it will likely become a bestseller for a few weeks among faith-based religious circles.

When asked by a Fox News reporter what drove him to write the bio-op of Palin, the heavyset Hilley, sporting a rather debonair double chin, said: “Well, this book began like all great projects, with a call from my agent saying, ‘Do you want to write a book about Sarah Palin?’ And then when I got into her character, I realized this was a story that could not be made up.”

And when asked what he found so interesting about her and if he had a chance to get to meet her and sit down with her, Hilley replied, according to a Fox News transcript of the interview: “Well, I didn’t get to sit down with her, but what captured me was when she came on the scene, everyone was talking about how she changed the political landscape, and I thought, that’s not correct. We’re missing the point.

America has changed. Not just this one election. But American politics has changed and she’s the kind of leader that we will see more and more of in the 21st century.”

When asked what attracted him to Palin as a subject for a quickie bio-op, Hilley said: “Well, in the past, the way we grew our leadership, we expected them to come in at the bottom, and work their way up and serve a long apprenticeship. And if you put in your time, you were considered qualified, and prepared at the same time….I wanted to know how [Palin] was able to do a good job with seemingly no qualifications, and that led me to understand that things have shifted and she has these qualities that I pointed out in the book.”

The Palin bio-op includes her recent speech to the Republican National Convention and was based on press clippings, an earlier biography about Palin that Hilley read. In addition, he interviewed “more than five and less than seven” people who know her.

Hilley is not the only writer doing a new Palin book. While Zondervan’s book is bathed in religion and aimed at conservative Christian readers, a humorous paperback is also being planned by a Manhattan writer. According to publisher David Nussbaum, “101 Things You — and John McCain — Didn’t Know About Sarah Palin,” is being written by Gregory Bergman and will have a print run of some 25,000 copies. A website for the book, 101thingsaboutsarahpalin.com, is online now.

As this story goes to screen, Joe Hilley’s take on Sarah Palin has been released on a suspecting public. It will be sure to capture the attention of readers in both blue and red states — on both sides of the church aisles and maybe in some synagogues as well — some looking for affirmation and others looking for a few cracks in the the governor’s rosy resume.

Expect the former. It might not be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but it will be sure to light another fuse in the Sisterhood of the Travel ling Pantsuits tent. Buyer beware!

Youtube link to Joe Hilley Interivew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hf1HlRGSZE

Previous RushPRnews article about book announcement from publisher:
http://www.rushprnews.com/2008/09/08/zondervan-to-publish-sarah-palins-biogr
aphy/

Other Palin’s stories here: http://www.rushprnews.com/?s=Sarah+Palin
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About the author: Dan Bloom is a RushPRnews political and environmental news columnist/reporter and a freelance writer from Boston, who has been based in Asia since 1991. He graduated from Tufts University in 1971 and has worked in media, public relations and education in several countries. He is currently doing research on climate change and global warming as the founder of the Polar Cities Research Institute. Write him at danbloom@RushPRnews.com

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