Who Is Sarah Palin?

C4P's R. A. Mansour

Last month, I read Lorenzo Benet's unauthorized biography of Sarah Palin, "Trailblazer," and this week I watched John Ziegler's complete interview with Sarah Palin.

The question I asked myself after finishing both is the same question I've been asking myself since August 29, 2008: Who is Sarah Palin?

Many who know her say that she is exactly the person that she appears to be. And, yet, no one is ever quite as they appear because they appear to be many things to many people. A person as complex and intriguing as Sarah Palin is certainly not that simple. However, complexity does not imply cunning or deceptive manipulation. A person can be honest, straightforward, and completely without guile and yet still be complex.

I've been fascinated by biographies and biography writing my entire life. One of my favorite books on the topic is Janet Malcolm's "The Silent Woman." Malcolm tries to get to the truth about the poet Sylvia Plath, and in my opinion comes closer than anyone else, by revealing the agendas of the biographers writing about Plath. Every biographer molds the biographical subject to fit a vision or agenda. Recognizing that is key to reading a biography objectively. We sign on to the biographer's vision, and we allow ourselves to either agree or disagree with that vision.
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