Sarah Palin's memoir is rushed to print and another of Bill Clinton's ladies, oops aides, writes a tell-all

Only 49 sleeps till Sarah Palin's book is released in the US, y'all!

A mere four months after announcing she would write a memoir about her incredibly short political career—and presumably her role in sinking John McCain's credibility once and for all—the most famous hockey mom of them all is readying herself for the book tour.

Going Rogue: An American Life takes its most excellent title from the phrase McCain aides used to describe Palin in the final phase of the presidential campaign, when she stopped pretending to listen to their advice. Her off-message blatherings were too much, even for Team Maverick. In true Palin style she embraced the term and for her fans "going rogue" is the ultimate compliment. She was also called a diva and crazy as a coon but they don't make such snappy book titles.

So what can we expect from 400 pages of raw, rogue Sarah? Well, it probably won't be as much fun as her nonsensical tweets (consistent rain reminds us—no rain, no rainbow), fabulously reinterpreted as poetry by William Shatner on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Her ghostwriter is Lynn Vincent, who knows what she's doing—her last effort ended up on the New York Times bestseller list and is being considered for film treatment. But then, Palin wouldn't allow herself to be filtered when it mattered most, when she was in line for a seat at the top table, so presumably Going Rogue will contain plenty of unadulterated Sarah wisdom, gems like "Alaska is all over the world map right now" and "My record is out there and my life is out there".

Further to the seemingly unstoppable memoir trend in publishing, a former aide of Bill Clinton's has claimed she was another victim of his sexual attention in a yet-to-be-published book called Government Girl: Young and Female in the White House. Stacy Parker Aab, who writes for the Huffington Post, says Clinton gave her a lingering hug while on a state trip to Okinawa, Japan in 2000. Not a job-well-done hug, or an I-appreciate-you hug. A creepy hug.

If this book really does contain new Clinton sleaze it probably will do very well, but having read a blurb written by the author on her publisher's website I have a sinking feeling she takes herself very seriously indeed. And not in an entertaining crazy-as-a-coon way:

"As an American woman, I feel I have much control in my life. I have unfettered opportunity to be in the public sphere. Yet I, too, had to work through massive anxieties and emotion as I wrote Government Girl, afraid as I was of how people would react. I thought about the public figures. The old colleagues. The family members. Would I be abandoned by them? Completely disowned? That’s the risk writers face when they try to tell the truth of their lives. It's my story but it's their story, too."

Oh dear.

But I remain hopeful for this simple fact: for much of her White House sojourn Aab worked in the office of the adorable pocket-sized politico George Stephanopoulos, who remains one of my favourite political commentators. Everything that pixie touches turns to gold. Perhaps some of the stardust brushed off on Aab.