commentary

Palin Doesn’t Know What She Doesn’t Know

By Jill Kuraitis, 9-16-08

“What do you make of the election?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say crabbily.

“Talk me down from my panic about Sarah Palin.”

What am I, a political therapist?

“Can’t help you; I’m on the ceiling too,” I say.

“Why haven’t you written about Palin on New West?”

“Can’t face it. Too much horror to sort out.  Shocked denial that anyone could approve of her. Passionate need to drive around with a loudspeaker on the roof shouting ‘ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?’”

Writing about Palin is like a room that’s so messy you can’t clean it up because once you get started you realize it’s five days of around the clock work so you just continue to wallow in the mess, even though you’re miserable about it.

It takes a lot of energy to sustain this level of outrage, but it’s too important to let the energy go.

Analysis of the audacity of McCain’s decision to choose a running mate with the audacity to think she is qualified to be president is easy to find.  Feminist analysis is everywhere.  Information on her history and background, quotes, facts, scandal, corruption, jokes and videos are posted and reported by the minute. My head has been spinning since the day her choice was announced.

I finally decided to just write about how I feel.

My first impression was that she was exactly the kind of woman I can’t stand.  I couldn’t stand her in high school, either.  She was the head cheerleader who got there by bullying others and having her mother pull strings.  She was the girl who secretly tortured other girls by starting rumors about them, but remained impossible to catch.  She was the girl who would be your best friend one day, then turn on you the next and use your confidences against you. She was the girl who would complain to teachers about her grades and fight for every possible recognition, deserved or not, because she had to win.  Winning was everything.

Sarahs are out only for themselves.  It’s not what they can achieve; it’s what they can get by achieving it. 

Oh, she was smart, although not the smartest.  She was talented, personable, energetic.  She was pretty, although there were prettier. She could be one of the girls or one of the boys.  There would always be a hubbub around her; always a drama, because she liked it that way.  She’d go through boyfriends like Kleenex, discarding them when someone better came along.

Most teachers would think she was wonderful: a class leader, an achiever – except perhaps one of your favorite teachers, who would see through Sarah and somehow let you know he was onto her.

But many mothers would know about Sarah from their daughters, and talk among themselves. Sarah’s mother was either oblivious, or worse: complicit.  Having now raised a daughter, I know mothers like that. They had been Sarahs, too.

When you’re a girl who is not a Sarah, you can’t express these things, because people say “you’re just jealous.” And of course, they are partly right.  Sarah didn’t have to work much for her recognition, and things we wanted seemed to just fall into her lap.

But some of us had mothers who knew the “things” that seemed to fall in Sarah’s lap were obtained using moral corruption.  Our moms guided us to real achievement and supported us through the Sarahs, letting us know we were right - that she really was beneath us - and that we were worth a hatful of gold more than she. In the end, our mothers told us, we would hold our heads high and thank god we weren’t Sarahs. We would turn out to be strong, contributing women: scholars, leaders, honest workers, loyal friends, feeders of the poor, fighters for justice, gardeners of the earth.

While some people admire Sarah Palin for bagging a moose, we admire our friends who saved the homeless shelter or taught a young immigrant to read or registered 400 people to vote, and we spend our moose-hunting time tutoring kids and teaching Sunday school and trying to save things, instead of shooting them.

“Class is on the inside,” said my middle-class mother. 

See, that’s the thing about Sarah Palin.  Yes, it’s tacky to name your boys Track and Trig – which are actually dog’s names, in my opinion - but that’s not important, only funny.

But what Palin lacks on the inside isn’t funny at all.

Though I haven’t been a governor, I consider myself slightly better equipped than she to be vice-president. I’m educated at a better institution. My knowledge of history and world affairs surpasses hers. I’m betting my familiarity with recent legislation, proposals, and political philosophies beats hers.  I grew up with a father who fought in four wars and have a son just home from the Middle East. I’ve lived among all kinds of people – left and right, black and white, rich and poor, rural and urban, educated and uneducated. 

Despite those things, I know I am not qualified to be vice president – not even close. If some “older gentleman” called me up and offered me the VP spot on a ticket I would fall over laughing.

That’s what Sarah Palin should have done, and that she did not is something I cannot get over; something I cannot forgive, and it says something about her which is fundamental.

We’ve endured eight years of a president who also thought he was qualified; a man who has spent his eight years ruining the land that I love.

Sarah Palin is even less qualified. That she doesn’t know it is the scariest thing of all.

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