Sarah Palin's steamy passage about husband Todd, plus surprisingly kind words about Hillary Clinton

It's not the typical kind of passage for a political memoir. But hey, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Pallin isn't the typical kind of politician.

Amid rumors that Palin and her husband Todd, known as Alaska's "First Dude," were getting a divorce, the governor recounts this moment in her odyssey. If it reads like a Harlequin novel, viewer discretion advised.

“That day in sunny Texas when the divorce rumors were rampant in the tabloids, I watched Todd, tanned and shirtless, take the baby from my arms and walk him back to the ranch house so Trig could nap while I made calls,” she writes in "Going Rogue," the much-publicized memoir out Tuesday. "Seeing Todd’s blue eyes smiling, I chuckled. ‘Dang,’ I thought. ‘Divorce Todd? Have you seen Todd?’”

Palin's book, "Going Rogue," is being released Tuesday with a huge publicity drum roll -- beginning with today's interview with Oprah Winfrey  -- and considerable speculation about whether the publicity will help Palin resurrect her political career.

In the meantime, various quotations are leaking out. One of the most intriguing is the Republican vice presidential candidate's view of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then battling Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.

From the book: "Should Secretary Clinton and I ever sit down over a cup of coffee, I know that we will fundamentally disagree on many issues, but my hat is off to her hard work on the 2008 campaign trail. …[A] lot of her supporters think she proved what Margaret Thatcher proclaimed: 'If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.' "

Here's Clinton's response.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: Gatty Images

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Comments

[JJ]

the LA Times calls this "steamy"?
You've got to be kidding.

[No Going Rogue]

"...my god lady....get a room..."

[Jim M.]

Ditto the first comment. Governor Palin's comment is about as steamy as a recipe for tuna salad. You've got to be kidding me!

[DickNasty]

She isn't qualified to color hair, I wouldn't vote for her for county dog catcher.

[The Shark]

Why is this Lady still in the News? She represents everything that is wrong with America. America is on the decline because "the hicks" cannot accept a Global Economy and a real world view. They live in their little world and refuse to accept that the rest of us deserve the American Dream too. IF they will not share the American Dream, none of us will have it and it will pass on to somewere else in the world. A lot of people support this Lady, which means the US is hopelessly divided between two kinds of people. The ones who support the GOP view and those who oppose it because that view keeps us down. The support for this Lady reinforces the American weakness that Education is not important, zealotry and red-neckism is more important than Culture, Education and Enlightenment. America should reject his Lady simply because she represents the Broken American Educational system. America's sole salvation is Education and intergration into the World View. The World is competing with us and their wish is to take us down. Educate to negate a Backwards America.

[Michael]

The book should be called "Still a dummy"

[suefromALASKA]

Sarah is a first-class twit.

[Ed]

Actually Shark, what represents "everything that is wrong with America" is the need for people to characterize and demonize other people. There's abjectly no difference between a racist bigot stereotyping hispanics/blacks/asians/Jews with an epithet and a cultural bigot feeling justified in labeling Conservatives as "hicks" and scapegoating them for all the world's problems. Didactict Conservatives and Liberals actually are very similar in tactics and worldviews of "us versus them." They might be different sides of the same coin but are similar in their cocksure assurance they only their view is legitimate and that everyone else must be persecuted, ridiculed and destroyed for having different thoughts.

You might feel better about America if you took a more realistic worldview and understand that it's natural that there are different viewpoints for basically every political issue and that disagreeing with someone doesn't invalidate their views, nor does their disagreeing mean they're somehow stupider than you or are evil/immoral/destructive people.

[Rico Cortez Alexander]

So she thinks she should stay in a marriage because the guy is hot and some of you idiots wanted her to be a heartbeat away.

[Ashby]

I love her!! Bought her book today and felt the inspiration I felt when she gave her first speech! She is such a class-act, and the media can do all they want to try to destroy her (like a bunch of rabid hound dogs), but she's got far more character in her pinky than they have in their entire body!!!

I totally admire and respect this woman and am so glad to see her in the spotlight again, looking as beautiful, polished, poised, and likeable as ever!!! What an inspiration, and I love how she wrote about her husband and hope to someday marry a man like that and have a family like hers!!

As a young woman, she is a total role model for me!! LOVE YOU SARAH!!!!

[MTS]

I'll agree that this isn't actually all that steamy. It reads like a parody of a 50s Harlequin Romance. The fact that she would something like this in a book and still ask to be taken seriously as politician with national aspirations is absolutely mind-boggling.

She truly represents all the worst elements in American culture: willfully and pridefully ignorant, anti-science, anti-intellectual, convinced of her own righteousness, contemptuous of the rights of others. Others are already starting to catalog the inaccuracies (well, lies really) in the book, so I'll leave that to them, but how have we fallen so far as a nation that she was actually the vice presidential candidate of a major party?

[Crust]

The right-wing continues to chew off its own leg by supporting this bimbo.

[Israel]

Can't help but LOVE her!!!!! The more I hear and see the more I am convinced!!!! Think she will do just fine in whatever role she chooses....I think she is so underestimated and that is what drives this hate, its called DENIAL!!!!

[jessie]

Sarah palin is awesome, all you haters need to get a life. No matter what you think of her, she is an amazing woman & would make a great PRESIDENT. GO SARAH PALIN!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jessie]

Ashby. You are coooooolll.