Palin comparisons
Friday afternoon, our society columnist Bruce Cook called me.
“What are you doing Sunday morning?”
“I don’t know. I have to check with my Mona-ger.”
Mona pencils me in for all sorts of things and I have trouble remembering them. I count on her reminders. Today, I actually bought a planner to keep better track of it all. Turns out I was free Sunay morning, and so was Mona, thankfully. So we ageed to be Bruce’s guests on KOCI-FM (101.5) live at the Back Bay Bistro. As we drove in we tuned into the station and her stereo toggled between KOCI and its neighbor, creating an ad-hoc Pink Floyd, Al Green medley. Pink Green? Green Floyd?
Anyway, it couldn’t have been any weirder than Sarah Palin’s hasty news conference Friday to announce her resignation. Talk about mixed metaphors and comparisons gone wild. She’s a point guard, knifing through traffic, keeping her eye on the ball, knowing when to pass? Huh? Sounds more like she dribbled the ball off her own foot and out of bounds.
Bruce initially wanted us on to talk about society’s insatiable appetite for celebrities in light of the deaths of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon. Aside from my joking obsession with celebrity deaths in threes, which, of course, I know is bunk but am nevertheless transfixed by, I had my usual take on the subject. People are more interested in what’s happening with Jacko’s estate because even that subject is easier to understand than the psychotic stunts of Kim Jong Il or the sham election in Iran and they just want fodder for water-cooler talk at work. No matter that the craziness happening in North Korea or Iran could touch off major international conflicts.
And, of course, everyone’s favorite reality TV star — Sarah Palin — managed to trump even Jacko and the Fourth of July this weekend, so we also addressed that topic. We’re all drawn by her rambling, almost Miss-Teen-USA-South-Carolina speeches, her steady supply of contradictions and,to top it all off, her hissyfits against comedians, reporters, you name it. She’s a footnote in history and she ended her political career Friday in one of her most astounding “Hi, I’m Barney Fife and I just shot myself in the foot with my single bullet” moments. Bruce was convinced that she’s still presidential timber. I say, sure, she’ll always have her cult following who will always see some value in what she says because she presses a lot of hot buttons they respond to, but most people will view her now as a quitter. If she can’t handle the slings and arrows now with a state that’s not nearly in as much trouble as, say, California, than how’s she going to handle the hot house known as the Oval Office?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a partisan. I don’t belong to either party, but I think Sarah Palin is a clown and any future she has will be as an entertainer on a conservative talk show because, surely, she offers nothing substantive to say, but she’s darned entertaining. Her book will be a blockbuster best-seller and she’ll continue to fascinate us for years, but she’ll never raise enough money to get even a decent start in Iowa. I’m sure of it. If the Republicans are smart they’ll nominate Mike Huckabee. He’s charismatic and he’s got a great sales pitch in the “fair tax.” A decade after Steve Forbes tried to sell us on the “flat tax,” Huckabee came up with better branding for it. It’s a great issue to center a campaign on. Plus, he understands the new civility. People want politicians who aren’t partisan jerks, always picking fights. Think Sarah Palin fits that image? Then you’re not paying close enough attention.
