The Week

• Apparently he confused the emperor of Japan with Andy Stern.

• Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, arrived on the scene with the force of a three-megaton explosion. It’s not a policy book, or a reputation-enhancing tome like Richard Nixon’s Six Crises. Instead, it’s a breezy memoir, relating her idyllic, outdoorsy Alaska childhood and her often rocky ride as John McCain’s running mate. She settles scores against her antagonists within the McCain campaign — the ones who trashed her, anonymously, in print — in a dishy exercise in payback. It couldn’t happen to nicer people. The book unleashed the sort of bilious attacks that attend anything Palin does, with, for example, the liberal opinion magazine Newsweek running a cover piece condemning her for ruining America, balanced by a companion piece condemning her for religious zealotry. Where does all this leave Palin? Probably roughly where she was before publication. If she wants to run for president, she’ll have to spend time developing and mastering a policy portfolio and smoothing over the rough spots in her image. If she wants to be a significant force within conservatism, she’s already there — and now she has the sales to prove it.