I've tried to keep strangely away from the Sarah-blogging, if only because I know I'm biased and would probably devote my evil left-wing godless blog energy to trashing her behind up one side and down the other and make her walk with a limp henceforth and onward. And that is maybe just the kind of thing Sarah Palin expects. Because I'm the kind of childless left-wing baby-hating feminist lonely hater who is probably a closet sexist.
Let's get one thing straight--I appreciate Sarah Palin as a woman. My feminism awakens when I consider that my fellow female might be judged by the context of her sexual organs, as opposed to the content of her character. When I look at this picture, where she wears nylon stockings under shorts, and poses contrapunto in a time-honored fashion next to a flag, I entirely understand that the good folks at Runner's World were just in awe of her femininity and patriotism. She was posed this way not to evoke "cheesecake", but to show her patriotic commitment to being very fit for Uncle Sam and Jesus. And she did not even know what she would look like in full make-up and shorts with nylons until she saw that picture, in 2002, and again, in 2009, when it became sexist. Amazing how pictures can turn on people.
As a former governor of Alaska and a representative of that last frontier, and as a former vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin has written a very important book, Going Rogue, which has a title stolen from the worst rumors about herself, in addition to being a line from Tina Fey's impersonation.
I'm not reading her book because, the way I see it, if every blogger cites every lie or suspected lie they think she's told, and copies a fair amount of the book, then I will have substantially read the whole thing before too long. That's why I'm reading Mudflats and keeping an eye on The Daily Dish.
I can see why some people find her likeable.
She's perseverant. She's resiliant and charismatic. She handles criticism, but remembers grudges. This appears to be one of the themes of her book. She has a plucky way about her, that actually thrives on criticism, and turns negatives into positives. If people call her "untried", she will admit she is a new face who isn't being given a chance. If people imply she doesn't know what she is doing, she can admit to being blind-sided by "gotcha" journalists. She is never wrong--per her book, she has people she can blame. She seems to sharpen the odd axe fit for grinding on her book.
Also, she is a mother.
Part of her criticism, or the criticism of those who support her, is a slander upon childless liberal women, to the effect that we don't support her just because she had a Down's Syndrome baby. Liberal women don't hate babies. Many of us actually try and reproduce by having them, just like we were normal human beings.
Feminism is about respecting women's choices. We respect Palin's decision to have Trig, despite knowing he would have special needs.
We might think she's flaky, though, when she brings her kids everywhere. I recall during the 2008 campaign, hockey mom Sarah Palin dropped the puck for a Flyers game here in Philadelphia. This town and its fans have a certain reputation. She had to have been apprised of it, and knew she would be booed. So, she brought Willow and Piper. Of course, she was still "booed". If Philly fans will boo Santa Claus, we'll definitely boo someone in front of their own kids. This makes one wonder if, should she actually become president or vice-president, if the youngsters would also be in tow, say, when she visits with other world leaders.
It's definitely true that she isn't covered by the media in the same way other political figures are covered--her coverage does seem a little more TMZ than MTP. But it's also true that she isn't governor of Alaska anymore, and on her book tour, she is just another celebrity now (although this may have always been a little bit true of her). It's hard to say that this is really the media's fault. If she's publicly beefing with David Letterman, or looking for softball celebrity-style interviews from Couric, Walters or Winfrey, it becomes a little difficult to take her seriously as a political candidate. When she verbally confuses Iran with Iraq, as in this interview with sympathetic host Sean Hannity:
well, we wonder. Because people in the McCain campaign told us she didn't know what the hell she was talking about regarding foreign policy. Because a year later, after her pretty disturbing inarticulate way of describing her foreign policy cred because of proximity to Russia, she still hasn't got much better. And when she makes statements regarding Jewish settlement expansion, given her history, is it any wonder some people speculate that she's tipping the hat to the Gog and Magog crowd?
There are reasons we prefer to see her as a celebrity. If we take her seriously, she becomes frightening--a mixture of uninformed and dead certain that would prove disastrous if set to blunder across the world stage.
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