Appealing or Appalling - Sarah Palin

I can't sit back and say nothing. I've been warned by a feminist friend that we shouldn't make sexist comments about Sarah Palin so I'm not going to comment on her beehive hairdo, because I had one of those myself, back in the late 60s, early 70's; I'm not going to comment on the fact that she brought her 4 month old to a large convention hall full of germs, loud noises and bright lights, because it's certainly her right to choose her parenting style. I'm not even going to comment on the apparent failure of the abstinence only approach to family planning, or wonder out loud if Bristol really had a choice in whether or not she would keep the baby.

I will say that for those pundits who think that women who would have voted for Hillary Clinton will now vote for John McCain because Sarah Palin is on the ticket, THEY ARE CRAZY. In Sarah Palin, we have the antithesis of most of what feminism stands for. My first vision of her on the night she was named as the nominee was that the McCain campaign had rented an actress from Saturday Night Live to do some stand-up comedy. That impression was reinforced in her "speech" at the convention a few nights ago. She is the Idaho/Alaska version of Lily Tomlin. She gave some one-liners and zingers at Barack Obama (most of which were patently false) with a cute smile and disingenous look. A look-alike actress has already parodied her in a Youtube video.

Sarah Palin may have "electrified" the convention and the socially conservative base of the Republican Party, but I can't believe that Hillary Democrats find her appealing. She favors the teaching of creationism, drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and no control on gun ownership. She is against abortion, even in the case of rape or incest, against stem cell research, and she sees the war in Iraq as a holy war, sanctioned personally by God. In many ways, she out-Bushes Bush. She went to college (4 colleges in 5 years) to become a journalist, but she has trouble sticking to the facts. Most of what she cited as "facts" about the Obama campaign have been fact-checked and proved false. Even her own line about the Bridge to Nowhere isn't true. Congress had begun to rescind the earmark for the bridge before she rejected it.

Overall, I am appalled by her as a choice for Vice President. She is like a cartoon outline of Hillary Clinton, a caricature of a serious candidate for the office of President or Vice President. She may actually qualify to be a rimless zero. And if I hear the word "electrified" one more time connected to her name, I think I may permanently turn off my television.