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Going Rogue: The Quiz

You’ve seen the interviews. You’ve read the instant reviews. You know everything about Sarah Palin’s new book. Or do you? Test your Palin-tology.

By Paul Slansky

1) Complete Sarah Palin’s quote: “If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come ___________________”

a) frankfurters are called hot dogs?
b) He made them out of meat?
c) they taste so darn good, especially moose. Sometimes I think if I could only eat one food for the rest of my life it would be moose.

2) How did Sarah Palin describe the childhood experience of being hassled by a state trooper – who should have had “more important things to do, like catching a bad guy, or maybe helping a poor old lady haul in her firewood for the night” – for snow machining down an empty dirt road on Christmas?

a) “Maybe that was my first brush with the skewed priorities of government.”
b) “It was my first negative encounter with a state trooper, but it wouldn’t be my last.”
c) “That was the day I realized that nothing was more important than telling the truth, and that I would live my life determined not to let even the slightest falsehood pass my lips.”

3) Complete Sarah Palin’s quote about her high school experience of meeting in public school classrooms for Bible study: “In those days _____________________”

a) God wasn’t a four-letter word.
b) you didn’t have to get permission from anybody to pray.
c) ACLU activists had not yet convinced young people that they were supposed to feel offended by other people's free exercise of religion.

4) What did teenage Sarah Palin’s father ask her to hold while he was field dressing a moose?

a) His hunting jacket.
b) His rifle.
c) The moose’s eyeballs.

5) What did Sarah Palin say “it took us aback to realize”?

a) That Trig would be a special needs child.
b) That Track was perceived by others as a weird name.
c) That Tripp’s paternal grandmother was dealing OxyContin.

6) The baby shower for which of Sarah Palin’s daughters was held at a shooting range?

a) Bristol.
b) Willow.
c) Piper.

7) Complete Sarah Palin’s quote: “Everything I ever needed to know ____________”

a) I learned on the basketball court.
b) came from that book you find in a drawer in every hotel room.
c) about Steve Schmidt was revealed when he didn’t let me make my concession speech.

8) What did Sarah Palin say she wished the McCain campaign spent more time talking about?

a) Obama’s closeness to ACORN and Jeremiah Wright.
b) Biden’s gaffes.
c) Nicolle Wallace’s ties to Katie Couric.

9) True or false? Sarah Palin was eager to appear on Saturday Night Live during the 2008 campaign.

a) True. As she writes, “‘Let’s do this,’ I said. ‘Let’s go on and neutralize some of this, and have some fun!’”
b) False. Though she wrote the above, leaked emails from the McCain campaign show that her actual position was “Not after seeing clips of what they’ve been playing re: my family … These folks are whack – didn’t know it was as bad as it is … what’s the upside in giving them or any celebrity venue a ratings boost? That’s Todd’s input also …”

10) What positive spin did Sarah Palin’s father put on her quitting her job as governor of Alaska?

a) “Sarah’s not retreating; she’s reloading.”
b) “Now she’ll have more time to spend with Todd. Have you seen Todd?”
c) “This way she can have her book in stores in time for Christmas.”

11) How many times is Levi Johnston referred to in Going Rogue as a “lying bucket of bullcrap”?

a) Once.
b) Twice.
c) None. The name Levi Johnston does not appear in the book, and he is referred to only once as Bristol’s “former boyfriend.”

12) False or true? Sarah Palin makes a big deal about Alaska’s proximity to Russia in Going Rogue?

a) False. She never mentions it.
b) True. Not only does she reiterate that “yes, you can indeed see Russia from Alaska,” but she cites a woman who swam across the Bering Strait. Oh, and the first thing in the book is a map that shows how close they are.

13) What is the significance of Michigan in the saga of Sarah Palin?

a) It’s the state where she finally stopped mentioning the Bridge to Nowhere.
b) She was giving a speech there when she felt contractions and realized she was about to give birth.
c) Her public disagreement with the campaign’s decision to pull out of the state prompted McCain aides to spread the word that she was “going rogue.”

14) Which of these lines from Going Rogue appears first?

a) “Yes, it did take me five years [to get through college] because I paid my own way … Sometimes we had to take a semester off and work until we could afford tuition again. I remember when that was an honorable thing.”
b) “The minute you start campaigning on ethics reform, critics start trolling to see what kind of dirt you’ve got under your fingernails.”
c) “A laserlike searing rolled through me in waves, from my knees to my belly button. Had any woman ever hurt this much? I didn’t think so. I gritted my teeth and willed myself not to scream.”
d) “At that moment, one of my Blackberrys vibrated me back to work. … It was Senator John McCain, asking if I wanted to help him change history.”
e) “Ever since I can remember, Dad would take us up to Mount McKinley National Park, named after President William McKinley of Ohio who had never traveled to our state.”
f) “Plato said it well: ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
g) “I don’t like to hear people complain; I am the first to say, ‘Buck up or stay in the truck.'”
h) “Dang!”

15) What is the last line of Going Rogue?

a) “And I’ll pull out a road map – I want to show Piper the way to Michigan.”
b) “I hear there are parts of Camp David that look just like Wasilla.”
c) “See you on Fox News every night, right after O’Reilly.”

ANSWERS: 1) b, 2) a, 3) c, 4) c, 5) b, 6) c, 7) a, 8) a, 9) b, 10) a, 11) c, 12) b, 13) c, 14) d, 15) a

Paul Slansky is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and the Huffington Post. His latest book is The Little Quiz Book of Big Political Sex Scandals.
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