Please… excuse… me…. while… I… tiptoe… through…. the… minefield…that …has… become…. saying…. virtually… anything… less… than… adulatory… about… Sarah… Palin.
Whew! For a second there, I thought I was a goner when I
even admitted the possibility that something less than fawning could be said
about the GOP’s second banana (by which I am , by no means, referring to
anything phallic). Hush my mouth! You’ve got to hand it to the Republicans,
though. They have managed to figure out how they can use Palin’s gender as both
a sword and a shield.. She’s allowed to throw a punch (even if it’s below the
belt), but please respect her dainty glass jaw (which has been blown—and that
is not intended to be a Monica reference—from the same batch as the ceiling
she’s surmounted).
They have immunized her from any scrutiny by the media
(just as she was apparently immunized from any serious scrutiny by McCain before
he chose her), and they have innoculated her with antibodies that will fight off
anyone who tries to attack her, which, in their newly created universe, means
anyone who isn’t sufficiently deferential and obsequious to their new “Queen of
Mean.”
The amazing thing about this figurative moat the GOP has
dug around their president-in-waiting, is that so many folks seem to be taking
it seriously. As a result, people who are used to critically scrutinizing
candidates for public office, indeed whose duty it is to do so, are quaking in
their boots, fearful that they will be tagged with the dreaded “S” word (and I
don’t mean “snarky”). The worst of these, I’m afraid, are Obama and Biden, who
are falling all over each other to see which one can go easier on Palin. I’m
actually afraid Biden may start the vice presidential debate by kissing Palin’s
ring (if not something else).
Anyone who wants to interview her, it seems, has to sign
some kind of oath forswearing questions any more probing than “what’s your
recipe for moose burgers,” and has to show evidence, upon entering the interview
room that they are actually wearing kid gloves (and who better to do all that
than the toadying ABC “journalist,” Charlie Gibson, who’s scored the first crack
at this delicate flower). It has gotten so silly that I understand the GOP is
considering filing a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office on the word “lipstick.” Their justification: lipstick, when used by
anyone other than the person (female only, of course) who applies it to herself
(physically or metaphorically) is automatically hateful and venomous and
infringes on the one and only rightful user’s license. And let’s not even talk
about fish references.
Who says personal issues, or family, are off the table? The
Republicans certainly don’t believe that, given the way they’ve attacked
Michelle Obama or other members of Obama’s family. And remember how they
attacked Teresa Kerry in ’04, or, for that matter, how Bush attacked McCain’s
family in the ’00 South Carolina primary? Why isn’t it fair game to go after
Palin’s house husband (he prefers “First Dude” which tells you everything you
need to know about him) for his membership in a political party that espouses
the secession of Alaska from the union? Or, why it isn’t fair game to ask Palin
herself why, in a world of diminishing resources, four children weren’t enough,
and why, at the age of 44, she subjected her child to the known risks of a
pregnancy with a substantially increased incidence of genetic defects? Isn’t
judgment always an issue for a candidate?
Give me a break! When you pride yourself on being a pit
bull (and whether or not you try to hide that with lipstick), you have to get
used to being treated as dangerous, to being reined in by animal control
officers, and yes, occasionally even to being “put down” (and I mean that in a
figurative sense). You’re not even entitled to your first bite, like most dogs
are. The circus atmosphere surrounding this apparent savior of the GOP ticket
has gone beyond absurd. If the press and the public (and especially the
Democrats) don’t do the job of seriously examining who this flash in the pan the
Republicans are trying to foist over on us really is, then we’ll deserve having
her be a “heartbeat from the presidency.”
Remember, the last person elected as a vice president who
had been a municipal executive and a governor of a state for less than two years
also broke a “glass ceiling. ” He was the first Greek-American to achieve such a
high elective office, and was, er, under investigation when he was added to the
ticket as Nixon’s “hatchet man.” Spiro Agnew, I mean. What is it they say about
the effect of not learning the lessons of history?
While I don’t think “Flailin’ Palin” will even survive on
the ticket to election day, I am implementing a contingency plan of praying
(something I am really not used to doing). I do earnestly entreat any and all
deities that, should the GOP succeed in fooling the American public (or worse,
stealing this election), like it has so many times before, her sponsor should
turn out to be neither as senile nor as sickly as he…seems…right…now.
