It was the introduction of Sarah Palin into the national news cycle that led me to turn this into an almost exclusively political blog late last year -- and now that she's, ahem, "leaving" the spotlight, I think it's only fair to take a look back at some of the best pieces and edited excerpts that dealt with her rise to fame and fortune. (Not surprisingly given the reaction by many of the, as Sarah herself might say, "Trigs" on the right, much of the stuff I wrote then is still relevant.) Bottom line: Where would we smart-asses be without her? We owe her so much great material. So, goodbye, Sarah. We'll miss you for the ten minutes you spend being quiet followed by all the interviews you do about your decision to be quiet followed by the reality show you and your idiot family launch next season on Fox.
"The Meta-Metamorphosis of Sarah Palin" (Originally Published, 10.24.08)
Remember Sarah Palin's hilarious appearance on Saturday Night Live last weekend?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
The truth is that Palin's SNL cameo was, by almost any reasonable standard, entirely uneventful -- shocking only for its complete lack of shock. I'm not sure what most people were expecting, but given her reputation for self-satisfied feistiness I think it's safe to say that Sarah Palin-as-barely-there-window-dressing probably wasn't it. Think about it: the woman who's been a weekly punching bag for a bunch of New York City wise-asses who can barely hide their disdain for her finally gets a chance to turn the tables and take a few shots of her own on national television and what does she do? Nothing. She talks to Lorne Michaels, shakes hands with Alec Baldwin, doesn't even speak to Tina Fey -- who's been personally responsible for the merciless mocking which many believe has helped to cement her image as a worldwide laughing stock -- but instead allows Fey to shoot her a look of absolute contempt, and throws her hands in the air for an "Alaska Rap" that makes MC Rove's little dance a couple of years back look like Chris Brown.
Sure, the writers likely had plenty of say in just how Palin would be used on the show -- but she's a candidate for the second highest office in the free world. Don't think for a second that she couldn't have flexed some muscle to ensure that she'd come off less like a wallflower and more like the kick-ass Vice Presidentrix holding her own in the lion's den against the snooty liberal onslaught she regularly rails against in small towns across America.
She could've done that. She had the chance -- not to be rude or vicious, but to be sharp and assertive -- and yet she didn't take it.
Why?
Simple.
Because no matter what she says to the robotic throngs of Joe Six-Packs who show up at her rallies -- no matter how strenuously she demonizes the so-called elitism of those Times-reading pseudo-intellectuals on the coasts -- make no mistake: She loved every second of being on Saturday Night Live.
Loved it.
She couldn't get enough of hearing the audience laugh.
It thrilled her to no end to shout, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!"
She got wet when Alec Baldwin stroked her hand and spoke to her in that soothing tone.
Sarah Palin was, in a word, starstruck -- both by those around her and, yes, by herself and how far she'd come. There she was, living out her Small Town TV Reporter/Miss Alaska Pageant fantasy of being on one of the biggest entertainment stages in the country, surrounded by celebrities. And she was the hottest thing there -- the belle of the ball.
We know this because according to SNL costume designer Tim Broecker, Palin was somewhat of a prima donna, upset that producers wanted her to wear the same kind of red skirt suit that Tina Fey's dead-on impression of Palin wears each week -- the kind Palin herself wore when she first hit the campaign trail. As it turns out, however, Fey's parody may not be so dead-on anymore, at least not when it comes to the way she dresses. Put simply, Tina Fey's version of Sarah Palin's fashion is so September, and Palin saw no reason to go back to that frumpy look, even for a comedy bit -- not when she'd worked so hard and spent so much of the Republican National Committee's money over the past few weeks to carefully cultivate a new image as America's Next Next-to-Top Executive.
By the way, now might be a good time to remind yourself of that whole Obama-Paris Hilton comparison that John McCain shamelessly pushed earlier this year and marvel at how the entire McCain campaign has become one constantly constricting Ouroboros of bald-faced hypocrisy.
Sarah Palin honestly thinks she's a star -- a pop culture icon. She now believes her own hype.
That pandering and sloganeering and droppin'-her-g's garbage? That's all a means to an end. I have no doubt that Palin actually buys into the crap she's shoveling -- that she's a True Believer in the power of Joe Six-Pack and a lockstep warrior for nonsensical neo-con values. It's just that over the past several weeks, it's become glaringly obvious that Sarah Palin's primary concern throughout this campaign has always been Sarah Palin. Like the proverbial ingenue, she was plucked from relative obscurity by a sad, aging once-great looking for that last shot at glory -- a guy convinced that her youth and vitality would be just what he needed to finally thrust him into the big time. And like the Hollywood ending that you could've seen coming a mile away, the ingenue quickly outgrew the one-time father figure and realized that he was actually nothing more than an obstacle on her own road to fame and fortune. Just like John McCain now at least partially blames Sarah Palin's shallow ignorance for his spiraling political fortunes, make no mistake that Sarah Palin -- in a breathtaking lack of gratitude -- likewise blames McCain's doddering buffoonery for hers, which is why, if you pay close attention, you can see that she's already subtly distancing herself from her running mate in what some are saying is an effort to sow the seeds of a personal run for the presidency in 2012.
As he often does, Bob Cesca cranked out a pretty entertaining piece for the Huffington Post recently in which he heralded the death of what he calls "Larry the Cable Guy Politics"; the idea being that for years Republican mainstays like George W. Bush have been playing dress-up, pretending to be just your average uneducated dumb-asses in an effort to ingratiate themselves to the real uneducated dumb-asses they rely on to keep them in power -- the same way comedian Dan Whitney has assumed the entirely fraudulent persona of "Larry the Cable Guy" because it's made him really, really rich. Cesca likens it to the meta-performance of Mark Wahlberg playing Eddie Adams playing Dirk Diggler playing Brock Landers in Boogie Nights. But now comes this little twist: that Sarah Palin, despite actually being a hockey mom and working off the premise that she's just Jane Six-Pack when trying to sell herself and her "vision" to NASCAR America, in reality doesn't think of herself as average at all. She in fact sees herself as a fashion plate, some hyper-hottie in a tight leather blazer and knee-high black boots, someone worthy of a $75,000 shopping spree at Neiman Marcus. Sarah Palin is now everything she ever dreamed of being: Sex and the City, right down to the "city" part. Sure, publicly she rebukes and ridicules those cosmopolitan urbanites in their bustling elitist hubs, but she knows damn well that she can't buy Valentino and Louis Vuitton at the Wal-Mart in Wasilla -- and if you don't think that Sarah Heath Palin has always fantasized about wearing Valentino and carrying Louis Vuitton, I've got a bridge to nowhere I want to sell you. She may still be a backwater dingbat, but she's now a very well put together backwater dingbat -- which I'm willing to bet has convinced her that she's no longer a backwater dingbat. If this is true, then it would mean that Palin has essentially ascended to the same position as George W. Bush and her GOP benefactors: she's only playing the part of the rube and is, in fact, secretly talking down to every one of those pick-up-driving Toby Keith fans who show up to her rallies -- the Dickies-clad folk not lucky enough to have won the Miss Vice Presidential pageant and been scooped up to a life of charter jets and appearances on Saturday Night Live.
But the new and improved Sarah Palin is more than just a simple case of someone taking on a part or putting on airs -- "lipstick on a pig," as it were.
I don't think Charlie Kaufman himself could've dreamed up a more Victor/Victorian mobius strip of meta-fiction than Saturday Night Live sticking the real Sarah Palin into her old red skirt suit to play Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin.
It would be enough to make your head spin were we not already talking about a woman whose willful Extreme Makeover had transformed her, ironically, into the very thing she purports to despise.
Of course, I'm not sure that -- as with everything Sarah Palin has shown us to date -- all the folksy indignation wasn't just bullshit anyway.
From "Six of Dumb, Half Dozen of Dumber" (Originally Published, 10.2.08)
Remember back in early 2001, when perpetual intellectual underachiever George W. Bush told the graduating class at Yale -- his alma mater -- that he was proof that even a "C" student could become president? Although he was aiming for self-deprecation, it was the subtext of that simple statement which made it so patently offensive. Bush wasn't the everyman hick he pretended to be -- a down-home interloper among the silver spoon-fed rich kids of the Ivy League; far from it. Not only was he a legacy while at Yale -- a predestined Skull and Bones oligarch -- but he in fact came from one of the wealthiest and most politically powerful families in the country. And that's what made his comments at the school's commencement so goddamned obnoxious: it's not as if he squeaked by with a "C" average because he had to work his way through college or because he faced some other obstacle that stood as an impediment to his education; it's not as if he scratched and clawed to earn that very average average. Bush didn't get better grades because he knew he didn't have to. He fucked around and didn't give a damn about actually being the best student he could be because his family, and his family's status, all but guaranteed that he'd eventually inherit the keys to the kingdom regardless. Why work for it when you don't have to?
What Bush was basically telling the Yale kids is, "You can be a lazy fuck-up and still get ahead -- as long as your last name is Bush. Heh heh."
No wonder they protested his appearance; it was an insult to everyone who actually worked to earn a degree.
At first glance, it may not seem like the dynastic Junior Bush has anything in common with an undereducated rube like Sarah Palin -- and really he doesn't.
Unless you consider this: they both believe that there's nothing wrong with ascending to the most important offices in our government without actually doing the work and learning the skills necessary to do the job well.
But whereas Bush seems slyly proud to have been able to work the system and stand on the shoulders of giants to get where he is, Palin's a True Believer -- she genuinely thinks that anyone, any "Joe Six-Pack," should have access to the presidency and vice presidency of this country without ever having made the effort or undertaken the course of self-betterment which would assure that he or she is more than just adequately qualified for the position.
What's more, the particular brand of Joe Six-Pack that Palin is ham handedly attempting to ingratiate and compare herself to is really, no bullshit, the last guy you want having an inequitable advantage at the very top of our government. He's the guy who robotically chants "USA! USA!" when confronted with a delicate international situation that requires not simply stern action but thoughtful nuance as well; who likewise extolls that this is "the greatest country on earth" without ever having tested that premise by traveling beyond its borders (or even wanting to); who believes that the rest of the world will invariably fall in line with whatever the good ole U-S-of-A says, dammit; who wants leaders he can drink with rather than ones he can look up to.
Sarah Palin really is just your basic unimpressive doofus -- living proof of affirmative action for the ambitious-but-stupid.
And she doesn't simply think of Joe Six-Pack as a campaign slogan or a means to an end -- she thinks of him as the future.
From "Choose Wisely" (Originally Published, 9.4.08)
So this is how it's going to be.
If you believe the chest-thumping coming from the McCain camp and its cadre of surrogates this morning, Sarah Palin hit it out of the park -- or at the very least, the Xcel Center -- last night in St. Paul. They're saying she killed when she mocked, in contemptuous fashion, Barack Obama's community service roots; they claim she silenced her critics by expressing solidarity with the nation's concerned and angry mothers, portraying herself as a "pit bull in lipstick" who could take any kind of heat; at the risk of mixing sports metaphors, they're smugly insisting that she put the Republican Party back in the game by throwing open the playbook from races past and pulling out an oldie-but-goodie that's never failed to bring the crowd to its feet and the base to the ballot box.
Call it the "Us vs. Them" end run.
Last night Sarah Palin -- and for that matter, most of the other Republican heavies who took the podium -- dropped all pretense of making the 2008 race for the White House about issues, choosing instead to do what the GOP does best: pander to the absolute lowest common denominator. Palin cast this election as nothing less than a "battle for survival," telling the frenzied crowd that "defeat means death." She dug out of the ground and whipped the corpse of the Republican base's oldest and most tired nemesis: the "liberal media," which the McCain campaign insists have unfairly savaged Palin and her family, but which, ironically, gave John McCain a free ride for so long. But best of all, and maybe most importantly when it comes to winning elections, Palin audaciously held her party up as underdogs battling valiantly against subjugation at the hands of -- you guessed it -- the "elite."
"In small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening. We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco," she sarcastically seethed at one point, emphasizing those divisive buzzwords -- "small towns," "San Francisco" -- that act as a subliminal trigger to NASCAR America that its simple way of life is under attack from overeducated outsiders.
And if you don't think this kind of crass misdirection works -- this brand of ridiculous, over-the-top fear-mongering aimed at keeping the culture war alive and well -- just look at the last eight years.
Here's the thing though, and this needs to be said: from what we witnessed last night, this election isn't about red and blue, black and white or small town and big city. Despite the subtle innuendoes and outright cries of Palin and the Republicans, none of these things is in competition during this race.
More than ever -- really, ever -- the race for the office of President of the United States is about smart and dumb.
Sarah Palin may have scored a barnburner last night, preaching to the converted by heaping scorn upon the fact that Barack Obama has authored two books -- which only to the Stuckey's night managers that make up so much of the Republican shock troops would seem like a liability. But it doesn't change the fact that she still has no business being anywhere near the White House; she simply isn't qualified, and her I'm-just-a-hockey-mom routine last night only proved it further. Honestly, it would take an idiot to want someone who spoke as if she were running for PTA chairwoman to be placed in the second highest office in the free world, directly under a 72-year-old cancer survivor. Unfortunately though, that's exactly the voting bloc the Republicans are counting on to give them another four years in the White House after these disastrous eight: Idiots. John McCain and Sarah Palin have nothing new, no groundbreaking or landmark ideas to bring to the table, so they're falling back on standard operating procedure: rile up the ignorant; complain about the dangers of people who actually think -- the "elite"; bitch about mistreatment at the hands of the right's most necessary boogeyman -- the so-called liberal media; complain, accuse, repeat. It's bullshit political theater, with the average American used as a stage prop to keep the oligarchic fat-cats of the GOP firmly in power.
As for those who say that Sarah Palin has more "executive experience" than a Barack Obama or a Joe Biden -- that claim reinforces the need for clearer, better thinking this time around. The reality is that Palin is trying to portray "small town" chutzpah as a substitute for education, intellectual curiosity and basic, well, smarts. Obama is quite possibly the most thoughtful, erudite and analytical political candidate I've seen in my lifetime; call him "elite" -- which the last time I checked was a compliment -- all you want, he's smart. He gets it. The same can be said about Joe Biden.
As for McCain and Palin?
The former is a very bright man who -- and I'm not kidding here -- may be showing major signs of cognitive deterioration as he pushes into his 70s; the latter believes the world is 6,000 years old. (And for the record, I don't care whether you believe in a hereafter or a benevolent supreme being -- if you seriously think that the world is 6,000 years old, standing in defiance of a truth that's been proven over and over again, you're a moron and I don't want you having any sort of say in my life beyond how quickly I get my Chicken McNuggets.)
And this is what it's come down to. They've drawn the battle lines and all that's left now is for the rest of us to choose which side we're on -- because they've seen to it that there is no middle-ground.
You're with us or you're with the idiots.
You're smart or stupid.
You either want your leaders to use their brains or you align yourself with the ones who would play the role of the dumb jocks mocking those who dare to think as being a bunch of effete wimps who can't be trusted.
You vote for great minds or for people who don't just devalue great minds but demonize them.
Sarah Palin was right about one thing last night: This is a battle for survival, but defeat doesn't mean death -- it means dumb.
I don't know about you, but I don't want the two most powerful people in the free world to be a couple of folks I'd just like to sit down and have a beer with; I want them to be fucking super heroes -- sharper, stronger and wiser than I could ever hope to be. They have the weight of the world on their shoulders; I want to never have to worry that they won't be able to carry it.
But that's my choice.
Now it's your turn.
Where do you stand?
From "And Now the Last Word (Hopefully) on Sarah Palin from Chez's Evil Twin, Garth" (Originally Published, 9.3.08)
Sarah Palin -- former beauty queen, ex-secessionist, small-town mayor turned first-term governor, mother of five, pro-lifer, hunter, gun enthusiast, patriot, Jesus freak creationist, cultivator of the naughty librarian look, and all-around empty vessel.
She's what the hardcore right's been waiting for all this time -- George W. Bush with tits.
She's somebody they can jerk-off to with one hand while they're saluting our troops with the other.
Sorry folks, but from where I'm sitting the only goddamned difference between Sarah Palin and George Bush is that Bush doesn't whip off his eyeglasses, let down his hair and rip open his blouse whenever he hears Motley Crue's Girls, Girls, Girls.
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