Government Dirt

by Maria Fotopoulos

Thank you, citizens, who came through with the Obama victory, voting for restoring credibility, integrity, intelligence, reason and sanity to the White House. What a joy it was to hear a poised and smart president-elect at that Friday press conference post-election. Some relief after eight years.

We’ve had a few weeks now to revel in the victory which hopefully won’t be short-lived with the financial Armageddon that’s knocking at the door. But let’s enjoy it just a little longer.

With the Obama win, we also can enjoy Sarah Palin’s return to the great State of Alaska (sorry Alaskans!), albeit with a side trip to a governors’ conference that shined a little too much light on this woman and generally a little too much other post-election attention on the Republican vice presidential candidate. But, we seem to finally be past Palin and her post-presidential election rounds.

So now that the fear of a Palin vice presidency (and perhaps presidency – “the horror”) has passed, we can look back over the recent months and truly appreciate the humor, and more frequently the pathos, that was Palin. The woman was like a character in a Tom Wolfe novel. For both the comedic and tragic value of it, let’s recap some of the famous quotes and highlights of Palin and her brood that rounded out the 2008 election:

Science? We don’t need no stinkin’ science!

“Some of these pet projects,” Palin said in speaking of government funding, “really don’t make a whole lot of sense … and sometimes they go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good … things like fruit fly research in Paris, France …”

Apparently the fruit fly has been important in autism research. The speech from which this Palin quote hails addressed special needs children for whom the Governor advocates.

Why fundamentalists always beat up on France is a topic for another day.

Reading is Fundamental

When asked what publications she read for an informed view, Palin responded, “Most of them.”

Looking for examples, interviewer Katie Couric asked the question again and got this response:

“I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, 'Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?' Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America."

All righty then! Good to know.

Wolves are for Shooting – and Air Assault is Best!

There was something positive that came out of Palin’s unconscionable support of shooting poor defenseless wolves from helicopters – a widespread public awareness of this practice not just in Alaska but in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies.

Shopping with Sarah

By the time Palin joined the McCain campaign, time was short on the trail. One would think that a U.S. governor would have a wardrobe to carry her through a few weeks. And even if she needed that hot little number for the convention, a couple of new suits and another hot number for an anticipated victory, $20k should have covered it. Heck, $5k could have done the trick. But spending $150k when the median income in the United States is one-third of that shows a complete lack of understanding; that is, the woman was clueless.

Alaska-Travelgate

There also was Alaska-Travelgate. It was reported that Palin charged Alaska more than $21,000 for commercial flights for her three daughters. While Palin’s spokesperson referenced the hundreds of invitations that the governor and her family receive monthly as some sort of cover, it appeared that this didn’t apply to all the travel in question. Reportedly, the travel expense forms were later changed to indicate “official state business.”

Whadya Say?

Stunning use of the English language by Palin:

“My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.”

And to the criticism that Palin didn’t know Africa is a country:
“Never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”
(See David Cavett’s terrific piece in the New York Times for further fun with Sarah’s wordsmithing: http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com.)

Babies Having Babies

Then, of course, there was the saga of Palin’s pregnant teen. No doubt many of us were relieved to hear Levi Johnston, the baby daddy of the expectant daughter say that he wasn’t really “a … redneck” and isn’t being forced into a shotgun wedding.

Johnston’s MySpace page, the source of the redneck reference, was “a joke” and one Johnston had nothing to do with, he said. As for marriage to the 17-year-old daughter of Palin, Johnston said they’d always planned on marrying.

Okay.

There were so many more embarrassments, but this post grows too long. To summarize, Sarah Palin was a walking, talking nonstop disaster, and that’s a generous characterization of this woman who was completely unfit for the national stage … one ginormous gaffe; yet …

It’s RIP for Palin or … the Next Political Party?

Along with millions of other Americans, I do hope this woman goes away from the national political stage and the way of Geraldine Ferraro.

In the event she doesn’t though, she might be just what the Democracy needs.

The Republican Party clearly has devolved into a party dominated by stupid white people driven by fundamentalism, a scorn for intellect (that is, they don’t like “them there smart people”) and an opposition to other people’s rights. So Palin could do a favor by breaking off this whacked-out collective and forming the State Mystical Party. These people do need a home (I just want it very, very far away from mine – while another country would be ideal, that’s not practicable), but it shouldn’t be one created by way of hijacking the Republican Party.

This solution would allow the Republican Party to return to some iteration of its former self, concerned with small government and staying out of people’s lives. Also, it could pave the way of return for people who’ve voted the Democratic ticket because there wasn’t another option. And with this new party, there’d be more receptivity to opening up what’s essentially only a two-party system – the Green Party, Independents and Libertarians don’t even get air-time now.

Palin … Grand Leader of the State Mystical Party. Might work for her.