All silliness aside, I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for Sarah Palin, who has been whisked out of Alaska where she seems to have done a pretty good job of being a mayor and a governor, and foisted onto the world stage where all eyes are on her and her every move is scrutinized. I don't agree with the Judith Warner NY Times piece where she's compared to Elle Woods, but it's worth reading, as Miss Haphazard points out, for the comments. My friend Katie asked me yesterday:
'and do you feel like Palin is going to drop out of the race for "family" reasons? seriously, how can she get through a mental chess game like last night with Joe Biden?'
Tina Fey is does her really well and I admit to giggling this morning as I watched last night's SNL skit but I wonder what kind of long-term damage this will do to her psyche when five or ten years from now she is still the punchline of political jokes. The woman we first saw burst onto that stage with John McCain, in her smart suit and pink lipstick, her shiney brown hair in a jaunty updo; the one that made the men swoon and the women identify with her ("I'm a hockey mom/I have a big family/I have a special needs kid/I hunt moose") is not the same woman we saw crumbling under the pretty fair questioning of Katie Couric. I think she's lost her confidence.
2 comments:
I thought the Tina Fey skit last night was so spot-on that it wasn't even funny. It's difficult to satirize someone who is already such a satire, and though Fey has all the physical quirks down, I found myself appalled because everything she was saying that might've been fictional could actually have come from Palin's mouth. It was depressing beyond words. Not even Duffy in her little black bubble suit romper cheered me up.
You cannot feel sorry for her. No way, no how. She didn't blink when she accepted the mission, the mission that we're on, to, um, save America from the terrorists and, uh, health care! And tax reduction! She's ready, after all.
Neither can we blink when faced with the absurd (yet real) possibility that she could be the Vice President of the United States of America. And dare we utter it -- President.
Forget for a moment the unappealing spectacle of someone squirming uncomfortably under the harsh gaze of an interview (albeit with a very gentle questioner) and think of all she represents -- an uncurious mind (equating any form of international travel as elitist), mendacious policy (get raped? sorry, but that's gonna cost ya! and that baby? gotta keep it!), backwards view of 21st century life as we know it (global warming; God's particular interest in, variously, the United States of America, our holy war against the terrorists in Iraq, oil pipeline projects; creationism; gays and lesbians); abuse of power (troopergate); and on and on. Palin is not deserving of our pity; rather, she warrants our abject fear and shock.
I mean, really:
COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?
PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada. It-- it's funny that a comment like that was-- kind of made to-- cari-- I don't know, you know? Reporters--
COURIC: Mock?
PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.
COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.
PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia--
COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?
PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.
[note: the foregoing was NOT an SNL skit. And Fey should be giving a cut of her salary to Palin for writing her lines for her.]
Feel sorry for the 40% or so of Amur'cans who think Palin in office would be just swell. They're much more deserving of it.
- David (FOJ)
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