PALIN KIDS' BOOK: TOO JESUS-Y TO COME OUT BEFORE NOVEMBER?

Just about a week after we learned about a forthcoming biography of Sarah Palin aimed at the tween market, we're now being told that the book is on hold:

Christian book publisher Zondervan is delaying publication of a Sarah Palin biography for young readers.

Cheryl Lundberg, Zondervan's director of customer service, said in an e-mail that after "careful review and discussion," it was deemed that October was not an "optimal time" to publish the book. She said no decision had been made on when the book would be printed....

Hmmm, let's see. The book is being released by a Christian publishing house (owned, by the way, by Rupert Murdoch). Its author used to work at Focus on the Family and has won awards from the Evangelical Press Association. An editor at the house said this about the book:

Kathleen Kerr, an acquisitions editor for Zondervan's Zonderkidz division, said the subjects are prominent figures who children hear about in the news and role models for tweens who are "working for the betterment of the world in which we live and who are motivated primarily by their Christian faith."

... Kerr said the book begins with Palin's childhood in Alaska and shows that "with guts, character, determination and unwavering faith in God, even an ordinary person can change the world."

Anyone else suspect that someone decided it would be bad for all the allegedly secular teabag candidates running this year if the top teabagger were the subject of a high-visibility, extremely Jesus-oriented book just before the elections?

I keep reading that the nouveau wingnuts have put Christian-right dogmatism behind them. It's a new day, I'm told. Then I notice that, according to Gallup, the two most popular potential presidential candidates in the GOP are the two most Jesus-y of the big names, Palin and Huckabee.

I think the GOP after November will be a lot more like the GOP of the Falwell era than most people do. And I think a lot of folks don't want Americans to know that. So maybe Zondervan wants to keep Palin looking relatively secular at least the midterms are over.