I love Rebecca Traister's piece in Salon today. Want to feel sorry for Sarah? Do you really feel that she's being treated unfairly? Traister pulls the curtain back and with piercing commentary speaks the truth:
Sarah Palin is no wilting flower. She is a politician who took the national stage and sneered at the work of community activists. She boldly tries to pass off incuriosity and lassitude as regular-people qualities, thereby doing a disservice to all those Americans who also work two jobs and do not come from families that hand out passports and backpacking trips, yet still manage to pick up a paper and read about their government and seek out experience and knowledge.
When you stage a train wreck of this magnitude -- trying to pass one under qualified chick off as another highly qualified chick with the lame hope that no one will notice -- well, then, I don't feel bad for you.
When you treat women as your toys, as gullible and insensate pawns in your Big Fat Presidential Bid -- or in Palin's case, in your Big Fat Chance to Be the First Woman Vice President Thanks to All the Cracks Hillary Put in the Ceiling -- I don't feel bad for you.
When you don't take your own career and reputation seriously enough to pause before striding onto a national stage and lying about your record of opposing a Bridge to Nowhere or using your special-needs child to garner the support of Americans in need of healthcare reform you don't support, I don't feel bad for you.
When you don't have enough regard for your country or its politics to cram effectively for the test -- a test that helps determine whether or not you get to run that country and participate in its politics -- I don't feel bad for you.
When your project is reliant on gaining the support of women whose reproductive rights you would limit, whose access to birth control and sex education you would curtail, whose healthcare options you would decrease, whose civil liberties you would take away and whose children and husbands and brothers (and sisters and daughters and friends) you would send to war in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and wherever else you saw fit without actually understanding international relations, I don't feel bad for you.
Yes this is the willful decision of Sarah Palin and John McCain. They chose this ticket and they are in the throes of the political "vetting" process of their own making. This so-called "political cauldron" is how our Presidents and leaders are formed. (Que up the Obama trials and tribulations.) I love the comment I read somewhere online yesterday. To the wingnuts:
"Before you ask for mercy regarding Ms Palin, please remove the knife from Obama's back. Oh, and send a note to Hillary apologizing for the "sexism" used against her for the last 20 years, before you cry "sexist" to any Palin critique!"
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