Please be patient since sooner or later I will get to the point I am trying to make.
I will first write or appropriate several hundred words in order to obliquely make my point.
The basic concept for this piece was brought up by a very bright yet far left leaning friend and of course, having worked for a variety of studios I quickly appropriated the idea in order to make it my own.
But first I digress.
It was over thirty years ago that my boss at Columbia Pictures Television called me and asked what a trade ad that we had run for one of our programs meant. My reply to him was that neither jokes nor ads had to be explained, that once you explained you were doomed. People either "get it" or they don't. Ergo, I trust that most will understand the point I am trying to make.
You do not need to be "older" (as is my leftist friend) to understand the virtues of the musical "My Fair Lady." Both stage and movie productions were simply wonderful.
The basic storyline concerns Eliza, a poor Cockney from Covent Garden who is transformed into a lady under the tutelage of Henry Higgins and his "roommate" Colonel Pickering.
Eliza is introduced as an unwashed girl with a grating voice selling flowers; Higgins is intrigued by the challenge. He sets about to create a very different "Eliza Doolittle."
Higgins tells Eliza, "You are to stay here with me for the next six months learning to speak beautifully, like a lady in a florist's shop."
In a most interesting and totally irrelevant and mostly overlooked moment in the play, Eliza's father, Alfred P. Doolittle visits Higgins' house to determine his daughter's whereabouts. His real interest isn't confirming her well-being; it's obtaining some money. Higgins' colleague, Colonel Pickering shocked by Doolittle's callous attitude inquires, "Have you no morals, man?" To which Doolittle calmly replies, "Nah. Can't afford none. Neither could you, if you were as poor as me."
And now back to my original point.
Higgins is ruthless in pushing Eliza. In addition to cleaning her up, teaching her how to behave in society, and instructing her about what to wear, he completely re-shapes her language skills.
When Eliza becomes the "belle of the ball" and succeeds in her role, a wonderful self congratulatory song is performed by Pickering and Higgins entitled "You Did It," and I will extract a few lines from the song.
...Tonight, old man, you did it!
You did it! You did it! You said that you would do it,
And indeed you did. I thought that you would rue it;
I doubted you'd do it. But now I must admit it
That succeed you did...
They thought she was ecstatic
And so damned aristocratic,
And they never knew
That you
Did it!
OK already, here is the point!
Henry Higgins took six months to "train" Eliza prior to taking her to the "Ball", while Sarah Palin, Mayor of Wasilla and Governor of Alaska, had only one sequestered month to "cram" whatever information she needed to bring her up to the speed of any high school sophomore who had studied civics for one semester.
Sarah Palin tried to play Eliza Doolittle without the intellect, or built in skill sets, nor did she have Henry Higgins to teach her what she needed to know. She failed miserably, and shows no signs of getting any better.
The parallels are obvious. The Republican "machinery" pounded "stuff" into Palin's head, and apparently as hard as they tried, the information was most assuredly "leaking out" elsewhere as they worked to put it in.
Her good looks, sexuality, energy, and mostly hidden connection to Christ just scare me to death. When she returns to Alaska she will find a "Henry Higgins", and after learning to handle the media she will become a scary right wing extremist and a political force to be reckoned with.
While I am probably breaking a rule of sorts with this, I will now quote from another movie, "Bull Durham."
Crash Davis is an aging minor league baseball player speaking to an up and coming star about handling the media.
Crash Davis: It's time to work on your interviews.
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: My interviews? What do I gotta do?
Crash Davis: You're gonna have to learn your clichés. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to know them. They're your friends. Write this down:
"We gotta play it one day at a time."
"I'm just happy to be here."
"Hope I can help the ball club."
"I just want to give it my best shot, and the good Lord willing, things will work out."
It has been difficult for me to learn that if you don't know what you are talking about, BE QUIET! Palin undoubtedly will learn that lesson. She should listen to Crash Davis. Perhaps Crash Davis can become Palin's Henry Higgins.
Palin will learn a lot in the future.
Palin will be back in the "Majors" very soon.
Palin will be a bigger rabble rousing demagogue in the future.
Palin will be a dangerous person for liberal heathens like me and all Democrats...
Now how bad will that be for America?
Very bad!
Norman Horowitz
Who loves how Palin plans to modify the Constitution to increase the power and role of the Vice President.