I like fiction as much as the next person, but I'm not going to read Going Rogue. I don't need to. You see, I know a little something about pathological liars. My bio-dad* is one.

Growing up not being able to trust one of the people who you are supposed to rely on intrinsically is no picnic. But from a psychological perspective, it can be fascinating. I used to get so mad at my dad when he got caught in a lie because he would never, ever own up. One time, when I was in high school and living with him (long story), I found out that he quit his job (or lost his job). But for a month afterward, he got into his uniform and went to "work" every day. I was so pissed when I found out that I came right home and marched into his room at one in the morning to wake him up and present the (air tight) evidence. That was the night I learned that you never want to back a sociopath who has any amount of control over you into a corner. Suffice to say he vehemently denied what I knew to be the truth and I got into big, big trouble.

I used to wonder how my dad could keep all his lies straight. Because when I told a lie, which of course I did as a teenager, I was always stressed out about my parents finding out about it and always worried about remembering what the lie was so I wouldn't slip up. Now I know that he doesn't care about keeping his lies straight. After the lie is told, I'm certain he doesn't even recognize it as untrue.

As an adult, lying makes me a little crazy. Hence my occasional wild rants about certain Republicans and their talking points. But at least they are lying for a reason--a Machiavellian reason, but a reason nonetheless. Pathological liars usually have an agenda, but they also lie for the sake of lying itself.

That Sarah Palin is a pathological liar was clear to me pretty early on. It's not the lies themselves, but the sheer audacity of them that makes it so. It doesn't matter how many emails exist to prove she's spinning a fantasy tale. It doesn't matter how many lies can be directly contradicted by public record. When called to task to answer for these lies, Palin will spin a web of excuses. She will use charm with the people who have not caught on to her. She will react viciously, and more than occasionally maliciously, to those who have. She will believe the words that come out of her mouth, reinventing her version reality over and over. In her world, the truth is what she says it is. And anyone who challenges her otherwise is out to get her.

The best pathological liars are dangerous, because it takes a long time for a normal person to catch on. They can be so charming that they draw you in, as we have seen with Palin and her cute little wink. But they take their time with each new mark, isolating them from people who know better, spinning the web, creating the alternate reality. Whatever they are after, and there's always something they are after, even if it's only someone new to believe in them, they often get it before the mark realizes he or she has been had.

Palin's current mark is obviously the American public. And she's got a fair number of us in her web. Luckily, she's not so bright. And luckily we have many journalists and bloggers who are busy fact-checking and making those facts known to the public. I'm hopeful that never will the American voters fall prey to Sarah Palin and her fantastical lies.

But boy do I feel for her kids.

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*When I have written before of my "dad" in the context of my mom's story, I'm referring to my step-dad. They met when I was 4  and married when I was 6. He's my dad in all the ways that matter.