Every one of us knows someone like this: They always find someone else to blame for their own mistakes or shortcomings and never take responsibility for their own actions.

Sarah Palin's new book is a classic study in this form of self-delusion. It is never attractive when we see it in co-workers, for instance. It is even more distasteful when we see it in public figures.

Her attacks on John Bitney and others in her administration and the John McCain campaign are petty and mean-spirited. And this toward people who worked day and night to help her in her campaigns.

Her attacks on Bitney in her book are just plain false and show her basic misunderstanding of how government works. She castigated him for saying he was "friends" with some legislators and so because of that she had to wonder "whose side he was on."

Well, to start with, the Legislature is not the enemy. They are an equal, elected, constitutional branch of government with just as much legitimacy as the executive branch, and the branches work together to form public policy.

At the press conference following the first legislative session of her administration, she praised Bitney for the many successes she claimed. Now she blames him for her failures with the Legislature.

Which is the truth?

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