"I'm just pilloried right and left and turned into the big bad wolf here for stuff I didn't do," said Bitney, who is now an aide to Valdez Republican Rep. John Harris. "It's like I'm this fictional character that she's decided to make me out to be this sort of incompetent slob."

Palin's lawyer, Tom Van Flein, responded in an e-mail that Bitney and others have been talking about "their perceptions of, and distortions about" Palin for more than a year, since after she was chosen as Sen. John McCain's vice presidential running mate.

" 'Going Rogue' is Sarah Palin's book to set the record straight. It is her right to speak about the events that occurred in her administration and neither Mr. Bitney nor anyone else has the right to stifle that speech," said Van Flein. "The statements in 'Going Rogue' speak for themselves, and it is Sarah Palin's turn to get the truth out there after a year of misrepresentations, half-truths and dissembling by her critics."

Palin's writing about Bitney is her most detailed description yet of incidents that helped shape her relationship with legislators. Her bad blood with top legislators of both parties began not long after she took office. By last spring, relationships with many lawmakers from both parties had soured to the point that feuds with the governor overshadowed much of the other legislative business.