You Betcha She's Doggone Cute
Sarah Palin is a character out of Lewis Carroll. No one can translate that smile. She's the Cheshire Cat.
She says nothing and she grins triumphantly. Her smile lingers when the words have gone.
Nothing she says makes sense but the eyelashes never stop batting. Catch phrases and buzz words bounce in the air above her head. She adores the word "also." Also, she adores herself. She is so doggone cute she turns herself on.
She is the woman politician advertisers have been waiting for -- all style and no substance. Full of confidence and full of beans, the walk of feminism without the talk. Nobody can object because there's nothing to object to. Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro had ideas you could disagree with. But Sarah Palin is perky and inscrutable at once, you betcha. She talks. We listen but we have no idea what's been said.
She is the female candidate of GOP dreams. She talks, she smiles, she flirts, she never opposes. She makes mistakes but nobody seems to care. We watch her lips go up, go down, go sideways. We watch her eyes glisten behind rimless glasses. The beauty pageant promoters removed her soul so it wouldn't get in the way. How can we dismiss her or debate her? She's a bubble. She's fizz.
She is the perfection of beauty pageant womanhood. All image, no ideas. Camera-ready for hair and lipstick commercials. Her patriotism is of the Fourth of July variety. Let's eat a heck of a lot of hot dogs, pun intended.
She's pure as a sex-phone operator. You can fantasize but not touch. The bill comes later.
She reminds me of Paris Hilton -- who once tried to trademark the expression "That's hot." Will Palin trademark "You betcha"? Or "doggone"? Or "team of mavericks"? I wouldn't put it past her. Whatever happens with the "election" the endorsements will come flooding in. Maybelline will want her. And Kellogg's. And Wal-Mart. Some publisher must already have an offer on the table.
Sarah Palin has already won the Olympics of reality TV. She'll do just fine. As for the rest of us -- I'm not so sure.
Read more reactions to the Biden-Palin Vice Presidential debate from HuffPost bloggers
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The real Sarah isn't what you see on the campaign trail. The only difference between other politicians and her is that she has sex appeal.
The comparison of Palin to Paris Hilton was also made by Rose Rosetree in her blog:
"What’s most striking about being Sarah Palin? Her degree of narcissism is quite extraordinary. By comparison, she makes Paris Hilton seem almost caring. "
http://www.rose-rosetree.com/blog/2008/10/03/aura-reading-empath-merge-biden-debates-palin/
Rose posted aura readings of the VP candidates during their debate.
We liberals/lefties on HuffPo can say what we will. But Sarah Plain is one tough, savvy, accomplished woman. I don't agree with her on a single policy issue; but I recognize that she's a success story. And I am thrilled that a woman with five children has been selected to run for VP on her party's ticket. The Dems haven't named a woman in 24 years! Doesn't anybody wonder...Why is that?
"She adores the word 'also.' "
Those indiscriminate "also's" of hers are getting my last nerve.
I agree with the cute and bubble and fizz ~~ image and lipstick ~~ but in short order, especially with SO MUCH exposure out of the tightly closed bottle and into the open air, the bubbles and fizz go flat, the lipstick wears off, and what's under there peeks out, and it is NOT NOT NOT cute.
I disagree with Jong's notion that Palin will "do just fine". Well, maybe in Palin's own head, but not to the rest of the world. Palin will be remembered as a buffoon who made a mockery of our politics and of women's role in it. It will raise questions that the GOP will forever more be trying to answer. For one, why isn't a smart, experienced woman able to participate in a populist approach to winning a campaign?
She may have inadvertently helped women: this is what we do not want to ever see again! This is what needs to be fixed!
It's not her cutesy wink wink, her accent, her folksy sayings, it's not her gender, it's the fact she sounds like she doesn't have a brain, doesn't answer questions put to her, and just cloaks herself in Alll American buzz phrases she knows will resonate (I know how you feel, us soccer moms, blah blah blah) .
The cutesyness, winks, and by golly and hecks, are just to drive the nonsense home.
Thanks for this column...it's to-the-point and should be mandatory reading for all poli sci majors. Oh, what the hell, all women should read it. I still have faith in even a current Palin supporter woman's ability to see through this cutsy stuff, if only she can get past whatever fear set is allowing her to swallow Palin's pap as though it actually sustains life. The "team of mavericks" especially amuses me...it is oxymoronic in that a maverick would not team with any other being for any reason. McCain's self-characterization as a maverick is a lie pure and simple...after all, he has stood with Bush at least 90% of the time. For example, if he really cared about the troops, he'd have put his vote behind his crocodile tears instead of [in most non-mavericky fashion] voting with his party and president to deny these heros their due. And Palin proudly says she's on this "team of mavericks." As with literally everything that comes out of her mouth, this would be just one more laugh moment if the even remote possibility of her landing the job-she-already-wants-to-expand, the vice presidency did not loom over our nation.
Exactly!
I keep wondering exactly who are the women who could watch that phoney cutesy b.s. and not see right through it.
I know a helluva lotta women and they all have the same reaction to her: absolute b.s.
I coouldn't bear to actually watch the VP debate. John McCain made me so angry during the presidential debate with the snide, contemptuous expression on his face every time Obama spoke that I wasn't able to concentrate on the answers either gave. For the VP debate I knew I would be totally distracted by Palin and so I sat on the couch, closed my eyes and listened. Wow. What a revelation. She spouted so much nonsense it was mind blowing. Biden was clear, concise and professional. I didn't even realize until after the debate that she had flirted with America during the debate with winks, big smiles and the disingenuous "li'l ol' me' performance. I would heartily recommend this method of evaluating the debates to others out there who are disgusted with the trivializing of these extremely important events. Interestiingly, one of the habits I found most annoying about Hillary was the endless smiling during speeches. I love the fact that Barack is serious and only smiles when there is something to smile about. Poor chap, I don't know how he keeps a sense of humor.
Palin is an expert at playing roles. She tells moms she's just like them. She winks at the guys at the bar. She wears her "Christian" sleeve logo to delight the ultra right. She's the combative mouthpiece to the Republicans still trying to cling to the, ahem, glorious Bush administration era.
Underneath this is a woman clawing her and scratching her way up, not based on knowledge, but on performance tricks.
I think that, when historians are writing about the decline and fall of the American nation, that they will peg the slide at the point where "I'd have a beer with him" and "I'd hit that" became seen as legitimate and valid qualifications for the highest offices in the country.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. As a female who still had guys in their 20's hitting on me when I was 44, trust me, that perky, cute thing she's riding on now is hanging by a thread. Next time around she'll be 48, in 2016 she'll be 52. Trust me she is in her last days of being able to ride perky and cute and wink "attya" without being a parody of her former self. And at that point she'll be a very attractive middle aged woman who will have to get to the next political rung on her knowledge and ability...and it is not going to happen.
Well said Mrs Jong. Sarah Palin is a box wrapped in pretty paper and ribbons, but the box is empry. The womem's movement has worked so hard for so long to advance the rights of women. How can any intelligent woman even consider Sarah Palin remotely qualified to be VP? Her views on birth control, choice, sex education are from the last century. Her knowledge of foreign policy is laughable,
The idea that she would expand the duties of the VP makes my wife and I shudder.
The lipstick smiles, flirty wimks and cute folksy talk may fool some people for a short time, but her complete lack of substance will not fool the intelligent women and men who will elect Obama/Bidden on Nov. 4th.
It's more like QUEEN ZIXI OF IX, by L. Frank Baum (yes, author of THE WIZARD OF OZ.) In QZoI a country in crisis selects the forty-seventh person to enter the capital city by the East Gate as the new King.
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