To while away the days until the publication of Sarah Palin's memoirs on November 17th, Rudolph Delson is reviewing the American vice presidential literary canon.

Campaigns have their rumors.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, there were rumors was that John McCain didn't really want Sarah Palin as his running mate. He chose her because he needed "to excite the right," because he needed "to win the Hillary vote," because he was "a maverick" in search of "a game-changer." But the rumor was: If he had his way, McCain never would have picked Palin. The rumor was: McCain really wanted Joe Lieberman.

All of which will be good to bear in mind while reading Palin's memoir next month. Instead of Going Rogue: An American Life, this season's literary treat could have been An Amazing Adventure: Joe and Hadassah's Personal Notes on the 2000 Campaign.

Oh, what an awful book! The sections attributed to Joe appear in a normal typeface, the sections attributed to Hadassah appear in bold, and sometimes they coo to each other adoringly. "Joe and I love being in love, and we have to be in touch with each other throughout the day." "The truth is that I am at least as dependent on her support as she is on mine." This is a family that cooks every dish in schmaltz, seasons every plate with piety:

When we leave the house, we always kiss the mezuzah. [...] I ask you to allow me to let the spirit move me, as it does, to remember the words from Chronicles, which are "to give thanks to God." [...] My mother told the reporter, "I haven't eaten in days. I am just sitting and crying." [...] I look down, and there are members of the Connecticut delegation whom we've known for years, and they are crying. [...] That's the way I felt when Al Gore selected me to run for Vice President. Miracle happen, so praise the Lord! [...] Sitting there, I looked over at [my step-son] and I could see him start to tear up a little. [...] A few days later, we introduced [the Secret Service] to Simchat Torah, the joyous day when we celebrate the completion of the annual cycle of weekly Torah readings. [...] A big crowd of parents, students, friends, my Connecticut senate and campaign staffs, and longtime local political allies surrounds us. We get choked up. [...] I wanted to cry; I did cry. [...] So we invited them all in for Kiddush.

But schmaltz and piety are only flavors for the Liebermans. The meat of every meal is self-satisfaction. Joe cannot report a joke without also reporting that his audience laughed. He cannot report a speech without also reporting that his audience cheered. If someone compliments one of his children, Joe will repeat the compliment to you. And above all, he just cannot get over the fact that he was the first Jew on a national ticket:

Not too long ago, I watched the wonderful television program The West Wing. It was a replay of an episode in which the president nominates the first Hispanic to be a Supreme Court justice. I took myself by surprise when I started to tear up at the end because I was so moved by the breakthrough, by the barrier falling-and at the same time it made me think, God, if I hadn't been myself, if I were just some guy out there watching Joe Lieberman get nominated, I would have been bawling.

Hadassah is a different kind of Lieberman. She isn't self-satisfied; she's just a bore. She has one page of interesting observations about the loneliness of a public servant's wife, but otherwise she has only one thing to say. Here she is, toasting Al Gore:

I raised my glass and said, "I want to toast you, Mr. Vice President." I turned and looked right into his eyes. "I want to toast you, because here I am, the daughter of Holocaust survivors."

Here she is in Nashville, Tennessee:

"Here I am," I said " ... here I am, the daughter of survivors from the Holocaust."

And here she is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania:

The turnout was enormous. There were Croations, Czechs, Poles, Italians, Latinos, Hungarians, Ukranians-well over twenty countries and cultures in attendance, all with national flags flying. There were people at the rally who had come from countries where my family had been murdered during World War II.

I don't know who encouraged Hadassah to make the Holocaust such a prominent motif in Amazing Adventure; it may just be that Amazing Adventure is meant to be a chatty book, and that the Holocaust is a prominent motif in Hadassah's daily chats. Anyway, apparently, during the 2000 campaign, Holocaust survivors would flock to her, weeping. As one Lieberman staffer tells Joe:

The Secret Service used to joke about it. An agent would go away on shift rotation for three weeks, come back, and say, "Oh, God, the crying is still going on!"

Let us pray.

LORD, if Hadassah Lieberman is so conscious of her astounding good fortune to be alive and to be free, couldn't she have taken the time to compose a work of literature whose merits are a tribute to the benefits of long life and broad liberty? And LORD, if Joe Lieberman has good reason for his towering self-regard and beefy self-esteem, why is he not ashamed to put his name on these 272 pages of dreck? LORD, was the sole reason the Liebermans published this thing to garner publicity for Joe's 2004 campaign?

The only person whose involvement in this sad project God or man can explain is that of the Lieberman's co-author, Sarah Crichton. Crichton, now the proud owner of her own FSG imprint, got paid to help draft Amazing Adventure, and presumably it wasn't much work; she cannot possibly have done much more than turn on a tape recorder and talk the Lieberman's through the Losing Vice-Presidential Candidate Memoir Checklist, which consists of 10 items:

(1) The shock of hearing that you are being vetted for Veep. Your humility.

(2) The exhilarating moment when the presidential nominee announced his running mate, and it's you! Again, your humility.

(3) The first surreal week, when the Secret Service fastens itself around your family and the campaign commandeers your calendar.

(4) Your devotion to, and unprecedented friendship with, the presidential nominee himself.

(5) The convention, and your speech to it, which is a triumph!

(6) The debate, and your preparation for it, which is rigorous!

(7) The exhaustion of the final weeks of campaigning.

(8) Trouble with the press! Trouble in the polls! Trouble with your staffers, who refuse your excellent advice, advice that might just have made the difference!

(9) Your hokey election-day rituals. Your humility.

(10) Your concession speech. Your humility.

Which is to say: Amazing Adventure ends as we always knew it would, with Joe Lieberman going onto the floor of the Senate and conceding the election to Dick Cheney. This cannot have been an easy speech to give; perhaps Joe can be forgiven for relying on the old crutches. He quotes the "words of faith from Psalm 30":

Weeping may linger for the night, but in the morning there are shouts of joy. So, today, as some of us weep for what could have been, we look to the future with faith that on another morning joy will surely come.

And indeed, in August of 2008, joy came. Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain ignored his gut and passed Joe Lieberman over.

Previously: Ferraro: My Story

Rudolph Delson lives in Brooklyn. He has won no awards and earned no distinctions. His novel "Maynard & Jennica" is now available in paperback.