Busy summer. I was out west and in Kodiak for most of May and in Cook Inlet on a research vessel all of August. The rest was kind of a blur of prepare and decompressing from the trips. I want to write about those trips in the next month or so but I have to re-start with the easy stuff. I would like to say, Sarah Palin is more than just a small town mayor and hockey mom. (I initially wrote that she is a dick, but she doesn't deserve that, although.) She is a crafty and gutsy politician.
She has seen opportunity and she has grabbed it. She has placed herself in the right places and used her assets to move her career up the ladder amazingly fast. But really we all know it, she just can't be vice president of the United States, she is barely a governor. She could be VP, if she and McCain are elected, and he lives, and he just has her sitting around like Nelson Rockefeller, going to the occasional funeral. But what if..... Makes me shudder.
She scored some points early in her career as governor but it was just too easy. She has had a state budget busting at the seams, she has had a cadre of corrupt, arrogant and incompetent dunces to use as foils. I now know how many Texans must have felt when they had a chance to get rid of George back in 2000. But we know how that one turned out.
This is some weird melding of reality TV and an Alaska Tourism Marketing campaign. A staged drama given to us in every increasing amounts with a bunch of Alaskan imagery and myths thrown in for the viewers in the lower 48. Screw healthcare, the deficit, the wars, the country is now rivetted to see Bristol's emerging stomach, or hear stories about Mr. Palin falling off his snowmachine during a race, or mooseburgers. Who cares if she doesn't know what a vice president is supposed to do, this is great theater.
This is some weird melding of reality TV and an Alaska Tourism Marketing campaign. A staged drama given to us in every increasing amounts with a bunch of Alaskan imagery and myths thrown in for the viewers in the lower 48. Screw healthcare, the deficit, the wars, the country is now rivetted to see Bristol's emerging stomach, or hear stories about Mr. Palin falling off his snowmachine during a race, or mooseburgers. Who cares if she doesn't know what a vice president is supposed to do, this is great theater.
As Alaskans we have the duty to tell the world that we elected her because she was cuter than Tony Knowles, and certainly smarter than Frank Murkowski (not saying much.) But we were certain that the oil companies would continue to run our state for us and that it would be OK to have the "hottest governor" in the US.
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