How we forget

If you did not know who Sarah Palin was, and you had to sit through one of her speeches, you might think to yourself “What a smarmy, arrogant, sarcastic, self-involved bore.” This person speaks in simple-minded clichés and inflammatory stereotypes that are essentially meaningless by themselves, but appeal to the reptilian portion of the brain. I recall seeing a photograph of Palin giving an interview while governor. The sofa she was sitting on was adorned with a skinned bear, head and all. On the coffee table was a King Crab. Were these props, or toys? Those things might have been “cool” when you were a kid, but there comes a time when you put away childish things. And Palin has shown time and time again that she hasn’t the personality or maturity to put away her juvenile mean-spiritedness. It is as if she is still in high school, playing “Sarah Barracuda.”

CNN’s—and that of the mainstream media in general—effort to puff-up Sarah Palin into some kind of political powerhouse reached new lows recently with Joe Miller’s surprising showing in Alaska’s senate Republican primary (but then again, Alaskans also found Palin acceptable), her tweet responding to criticism from a union official by blaming Obama for the state of the economy, and defense of Laura Schlessinger’s use of the “N-word.” I understand the “need” by some to find a woman to be an influential “player” on the national stage. But Palin? Palin reminds me of Paris Hilton—famous for being “famous” due solely from subjective media exposure, not for any particularly significant thing she has ever done. But then again, I’m probably doing a disservice to Hilton, since if she is dangerous, it is only to herself, not the country. Thanks to John McCain, the unknown Palin turned from a cynical political prop to overnight media sensation--albeit an empty skirt.

The Palin profile in the latest edition of Vanity Fair--which characterizes her as often violent and emotionally unhinged when crossed and out of public view--is not unexpectedly being called a "hit piece" by the right and "sexist" by feminists. The real crime here, of course, is that the piece exposed the part of Palin that we suspected existed but many did not wish to be confronted with. What's the point, they might ask. Nobody is seriously considering voting for Palin as president--are they? But the reality of Palin speaks for itself, even if CNN continues to do her publicity work rather than reporting the truth.

Truthful reporting would, for instance, include the question of why would anyone entrust Palin with anything, let alone the country? She lied about the reason why she decided to bail on her governor’s position, which she referred to as her “last few months,” when in fact she was barely half-way through her term. While other governors were battling their budget crisis in this unstable economy, Palin simply walked away. The reality was that Palin and her husband owed a half-million dollars in legal expenses—and more, from Troopergate and other as yet unreported revelations of corruption; hell, Rod Blagojevich has more balls (euphemistically, of course) than Palin. There is no doubt that being governor bored her, with all that studying and reading and working with people and all, and the prospect of a lucrative speaking tour funded by wealthy right-wing donors keeping her in the spotlight she allegedly doesn’t crave, was all right too. And maybe there is the issue of competence; with Alaska was gushing with oil revenue, governing was easy because there was so much money to play around with that every citizen of the state received a dividend from the state oil fund (instead of being used for public education, for which Palin had refused stimulus money for). With the spotlight on Palin, her actual aptitude would have been under greater scrutiny had she remained in office.

Palin, for all the rope she has been given by the slovenly media to prove herself a viable quantity, has demonstrated that she can’t be trusted to go the distance. I think that “Sarah Barracuda” is what she has always been: an individual who has a pathological lust for power for its own sake, and will tread on anyone who is in her way to get it. She is also someone who has an uncanny ability to incite a mob mentality with over-the-top “populist” rhetoric that appeals to the darkest instincts of human nature. Yet when she was required to be a leader, she abandoned the field like a coward—which makes her announcement on the eve of the Fourth of July seem just that more incomprehensible. For her own sake and ours, she should bail-out of politics altogether. As for the Republicans, if they see Palin as their future, be afraid—be very afraid, or at least they should.

How people have forgotten about many gaffes that reveal the real Palin. As Troopergate demonstrated, this is an individual prone to abuse power for petty personal interest. As her attacks on Obama during the campaign indicated, she is not “above” using racism, fear and paranoia to “advance” her agenda. As her book demonstrates, she is not “above” engaging in dishonest personal attacks, refusing to take personal responsibility, and being incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction. One reviewer of her book noted that she seemed incapable of “introspection,” meaning the inability to rationalize her beliefs, or reflect on her own errors of judgment and correct them (like, say, George Bush); she prefers to blame others for her mistakes and shortcomings. Perhaps because Alaska is so backward and isolated from civilization, only there could someone like Palin advance from a mayor’s office that resembled a “Louisiana bait shop” to the governor’s “mansion” by stepping on numerous toes, making more enemies in her own party than the opposition, and fooling a lot of people.

Some people remember the Couric interview, but there was, of course, much more. After a 2007 interview with a Pittsburgh radio station, Tribune-Review columnist Dimitri Vassilaros called Palin the Republican’s “beacon of light.” He stated that she was “pragmatic” and “principled,” and was “the brightest light in the land of the midnight sun.” He went to say that Palin regarded the Constitution as her “Bible for governing.” The amusing part of this report was that Vassilaros was not jesting. During the interview Palin’s response to the repeated question if she was planning to run for president was giggling, laughing nervously, behaving as if a 10-year-old being asked if she has a crush on some boy. She never said yes, but she didn’t say no, either. Vassilaros called it “self-deprecation”; it sounded to me more like an embarrassing lack of self-discipline, forthrightness and firmness.

However, radio jockeys in Florida did peg Palin correctly when they exposed her massive ego and lack of common sense when the “President of France”—actually a Canadian prankster—called in to engage in small chit-chat—the ridiculousness of which Palin utterly failed to catch-on to; she actually believed that the “President of France” would call her on some small-time radio show with a less-than-serious news format.

On the campaign trail, in between the annoying, rude speech mannerisms in the same vein as the gut-churning spectacle of other white people trashing a black man in a demonizing and dehumanizing manner, Palin spoke as if she wasn’t aware of media revelations that called into question her “maverick” status. She talked about battling the “good old boys” and ethics reform, yet she was being investigated over unethical actions in the “good old boy” vein in the firing of the public safety commissioner, who had the temerity to not to fire her sister’s ex-husband. She then claimed she stood up to oil companies, yet neglected to mention she is sought to weaken the Endangered Species Act to facilitate drilling in ANWR. More outrageously, she claimed to oppose earmarks, yet media reports say she repeatedly sought–and received–them.

Another reality Palin’s “fans” seem to like about her is that like Dick Cheney, Palin really is a rogue operator who believes she is above the law and even her own self-proclaimed “ethics”–especially given her limited “knowledge” of the Constitution. During the vice presidential “debate,” Joe Biden had to correct her belief that the Constitution didn’t apply to her. One might recall as well during that so-called “debate” the moderator tossed out cream puff questions (abortion wasn’t even mentioned) that were easy for Palin to digest, but at least Biden respected the debate format; his opponent behaved as if this was a campaign speech, interrupted occasionally by someone else talking. Palin’s arrogance (and perhaps a tacit confession of incompetence) was on full display when she announced she wasn’t going to answer questions “the way you want me to.” This apparently happened quite frequently, considering the shallowness of her responses throughout when she wasn’t completely off topic. This “maverick,” “agent of change” and “Washington outsider” repeated the same “folksy” clichés, right-wing talking points and fear propaganda we had been force-fed by the Bush administration for eight years.

It is also interesting to note that while Palin felt she had an “obligation” to denounce “radical” black preacher Jeremiah Wright and “expose” the “full extent” of his influence over Obama to frightened white people, the media paid little attention to Palin’s “anointment” by a Kenyan preacher named Thomas Muthee as the future governor of Alaska. Muthee was known as a “witch-hunter” in Kenya, accusing at least one woman of being a “witch,” her possession by the devil causing a car accident. References to Muthee’s “witch-hunting” expertise could be found on the website of Palin’s church, until it was removed after she announced that she was running for governor. Is this the “godly” woman Palin’s “fans” are referring to?

Is this what Palin’s Tea Party “fans” see in themselves? Is this the “future” we want?