Sarah Palin’s Greatest Hits
So in a little less than two weeks Sarah Palin will resign as Governor of Alaska. On that day, I will truly be in mourning. Say whatever else you will about her, but no other politician has been such an endless source of excitement, speculation, interest, and entertainment. Needless to say, it’s the entertainment that I’ll miss the most. Whatever speculation I may have personally about her future ambitions (hint: Palin 2012), for now one can only take her at her word that she’s out of the political arena. So under the assumption that we won’t be “palin’ around” with Palin anymore, here are some of my favorite Palin moments.
Let’s start with her foreign policy expertise:
Of course we must not blink. We also must not get that glazed-over look when asked about a basic tenant of the previous administration’s foreign policy. But this was only the beginning of a series of embarrassing and amusing revelations about just who the McCain campaign chose to be a heartbeat away from the White House. Then there were the Katie Couric disasters.
Yeah, ok. So because you can see Russia from your back yard, that gives you foreign policy experience to be Vice President of the United States. By that logic, I can see
Camden, New Jersey from the roof of my apartment building, so that qualifies me to be governor of New Jersey (and I’m GAY too!).
One other thing that our fair Sarah didn’t seem to realize is that when a presidential candidate picks you to be his VP and you say “yes” (with or without blinking), it kinda helps to know something about his record.
SORRY, WRONG ANSWER! If this were a job interview, she’d be getting the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” letter. What was most telling to me is not so much what these interviews revealed about her lack of policy experience outside of Alaska, but what they revealed about her lack of interview skills. Case in point, the newspaper question.
Oh good Lord, woman! You could have just rattled off a couple of names like USA Today, Newsweek, Time, etc. Hell, even Ebony, Jet, or Watchtower would have at least let us know that you had something up there besides moose-blubber for brains. It’s not like Couric was going to go behind you can actually check to see if you’ve read them. It was a throwaway question and you blew it. Then you blamed the media for you blowing it.
But I digress. Not all of Palin’s hits came from the campaign trail. The end of the campaign was certainly not the end of Sarah Palin. Who could forget “TURKEYGATE”? Rather than explain this one, I’ll give you Keith Olberman’s reaction as he sees it for the first time, which only adds to the comedy.
Like the Couric interviews and the Gibson interview, the media was to blame for this wacky foul-up as well. This revealed a rather glaring character flaw. When it comes to Sarah Palin, nothing is ever her fault as far as she is concerned. Since the campaign she has blamed the media, the democrats, the blogsphere, Obama, Caroline Kennedy, the McCain campaign, Tina Fey, and Keith Olbermann for her downfall. Or as she would call him, Keith the Evil!
Of course all of the above would be mere political idiosyncrasies were it not for the spot-on masterful portrayal of her by Tina Fey, a portrayal which earned Saturday Night Live 13 Emmy nominations. Here are three of my favorites.
Ah yes. If this is indeed the end, then we shall truly miss our fair Sarah. Her smile, her wink, her inability to pronounce the letter “g”, the endless family squabbles, the $150,000.00 wardrobe. Most of all what we’ll miss is her ability to clearly define our opinion of her. It seems, based on blogs, comments, etc., that there is truly no gray area regarding our view of her. We either think of her as the most dim-witted, addle-brained, ditz ever to break into the political arena, or we think of her much as Rich Lowry of the National Review does…
A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It’s one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O’Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think she just winked at me.” And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can’t be learned; it’s either something you have or you don’t, and man, she’s got it.
Yeah. Just hope you don’t get any of it on you. Of course, those on the right who feel the same as Rich “somebody get me a towel” Lowry think that we on the left are afraid of Palin. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sarah Palin is the best thing to happen to the Democrats and liberalism since the ACLU. What righties don’t seem to understand is that we WANT Palin to stay in the spotlight. We want her to keep talking and making a complete fool of herself. Most of all, we want her to run in 2012. If anyone is afraid of her, it’s Republicans. She is a shining example of what happens to conservatism when the nut-bag lunatic fringe of the movement becomes its representative. So, Sarah, if you’re reading this, I wish you all the best in all of your future endeavors. And just for me, and liberals everywhere…RUN SARAH, RUN.
Palin/Plumber 2012
