Palin and her followers: one woman's retrospective

Sarah Palin

Since the brutal 2008 presidential campaign and the overwhelming win by the Democrats, members of both parties glibly blame the whole debacle on GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. I don’t think that this analogy is valid. It gives her way too much credit. If she had any brains at all, she would have rejected John McCain’s offer to share his ticket.

McCain is 100 percent responsible for his party’s embarrassingly shoddy showing. To this day I don’t know what he was thinking, or if he was. Was he so transparently hell-bent on being a maverick? By selecting Palin, after only meeting her once in passing at a conference and talking with her briefly down at his ranch in Arizona, McCain insulted my intelligence and that of every thinking woman in America. He destroyed what was left of an almost non-existent respect for a man of many moods, decisions and temperaments. Will the real John McCain please stand up?

Palin is an interesting study. So are her followers. Palin has been able to charm her way into the hearts and minds of the righteous right. They are against a woman’s right to choose. They are staunch supporters of family values, God, country and apple pie. They are, quite simply, hypocrites. Palin, a spoiled whiney ego-maniac, massager of the truth and an amazingly ignorant – as opposed to stupid – woman has been able to convince her followers that she is one of them, to turn their heads at her “misquotes” and to rally around the soccer mom with lipstick. As for the men who go gaa-gaa over her, it is obvious they are thinking with a part of their anatomy that doesn’t include the brain, although that requires a certain amount of acumen as well.

The majority of women who follow her have no class. Money maybe, but no class. They lack experience of any kind because they’ve never had to work to support themselves. They are totally devoid of any knowledge and appreciable understanding of national and international affairs. Their whole world is built around clichés, tunnel vision and shallowness. Are they racist? You bet-cha.

If their husbands tell them to jump, they reach for the moon. Their reading consists of authors on the level of Danielle Steele as opposed to substantially informative publications. They follow Palin because, like her, they are angry and mean spirited. If they could think for themselves, at least some of them would have worn pantsuits at the GOP national convention. This caliber of woman is used to and has the money to dress to hide their flaws, so why not pantsuits to hide their rumps that have grown wide and soft over the years?

It should have been obvious to anyone watching Palin’s embarrassing interviews that she is totally unaware of national and world affairs, she has no substance and she is unbelievably ignorant in all things important for a person who might fall by default into becoming president of this country. I cannot picture her at a meeting with international leaders.You bet’cha.
The woman is an expert at using the media to get out her message but spews invectives against the fourth estate when she is questioned – and found lacking – on serious issues. She is one of these petty women who goes on the attack and then snivels that everyone is picking on her.

Whether to stay home with children or work is a matter of choice but when a woman keeps manufacturing kids every whipstitch, I question the wisdom of having an ambitious career requiring long absences from home. Maybe if she’d been around more, Bristol wouldn’t have sought affection and approval in other quarters. Children are similar to pets. When you bring them home you have a responsibility to love them and to nurture them – not to exploit them before a national audience. Not only is this classless, it is tasteless, cruel and insensitive. I know women who are perfectly capable of juggling husbands, children and careers without a hitch but obviously the Palins don’t have that ability.

I wish her well but seriously doubt that she will ever ask herself what she did wrong, becoming even angrier and bitter over time. I firmly believe that, like so many who are intellectualy challenged, she is as tenacious as a Pit Bull wearing lipstick, going for the jugular and never letting go.