High Heels and Lipstick

As many of you have likely experienced there were several times during the election campaign when a friend, usually, but not exclusively male, would admit to being attracted to Sarah Palin. Unlike the nerdy adolescents at the ever-shrinking National Review these were hardened liberals who'd sooner be caught en flagrant with Bill O'Reilly than suggest that Palin's "mesmerizing" performance against Joe Biden "sent little starbursts through the [T.V.] screen" . Or as Rick Lowry went on to gush-- that she made them sit up "a little straighter on the couch and [say], "Hey, I think she just winked at me."

None would ever propose, as did the goo-goo-eyed Mark Steyn, that Sarah Palin "sounded like the citizen-politician this country’s Founders intended" but there is an uncomfortable truth about her appeal. Palin's aggressive feminized presence projects the kind of animal magnetism that can cause fully developed brains to instantly dissolve into post-pubescent mush. How else does one explain Camille Paglia's only slightly tongue-in-cheek exclamation that, "Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich."

After being battered by Bush's disinterested leadership and their own spectacularly destructive policies, conservatives are grateful to have Palin's womanly form to drool over while they spend the next thirty years drilling for an idea in the political wilderness. Far from the visceral fear she inspires in most liberals, much of the public appears to identify with this self-styled hockey-mom from Alaska who likens herself to a pit-bull, thinks a woman's first duty is to replenish the earth, believes in witches and, perhaps inadvertently, speaks in tongues. I submit that for all her "weirdness", in a disturbing fundamental way, Sarah Palin reflects the muchness of America.

Isolation Breeds Stunted Development

A recent study showed that a sampling of elected U.S. officials could correctly answer only 44% of basic questions on the Constitution and the various roles of our government. Correspondingly, 30 % of America's high school graduates cannot locate Great Britain on a map or identify the Pacific Ocean. A majority of us reject evolution but believe in ghosts, while over 70% are positive that Jesus was born to a virgin. We laugh at Sarah Palin and her adorers at our own peril. As Zbigniew Brzezinski mordantly observes in "America and the World", "Americans are curiously, paradoxically, simultaneously, very well-educated and amazingly ignorant."

Zbig should know--the former National Security Adviser could be describing his own daughter. Despite these Palin doozies-- "He [Obama] says that sure, if industry wants to try to build these coal-fired power plants, they can go ahead and try, but they're only gonna be able to do it in a way that bankruptcies the whole industry." Palin then alludes to Obama's infamous characterization of small town voters, but calls them alternately “bitter clingers” and “cling-ons” --MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski nevertheless proceeds to opine: "Sarah was quite amazing today. I was watching her in Lakewood, Ohio, performing beautifully, really - masterfully ..." I assume Mika is no one's dummy so I can only surmise that like Rick and Camille poor Mika has a serious girl-crush:



So what does it mean that despite the voters having judged that Sarah Palin lacks the skills to be president large portions of the media persist in sounding lovestruck? I suspect it is for the same reason that in spite of our unabashed ignorance and self-absorption the rest of the world finds itself entranced by us Americans. I sense that at an atavistic level men the world over (and probably more than a few repressed women) find themselves attracted to our overt sexuality. We use our Sarah Palins to sell our poorly made cars, our insipid light beer and our froth-filled movies, so why shouldn't a former beauty contestant use all of her exceptional physical charms to sell her politics?


Cagle Cartoons

The danger in this 21st century world of instant gratification is that Madison's Avenue's persistent tapping of the Venus center in our brains has left the average American male constantly horny and his women unsatisfied. It has gone on so long that for relief we seem to be craving our own demise. When someone as expensively educated as Mark Steyn is so enraptured by Palin's metaphorical "music" that he is willing to ignore her tortuous "lyrics" Zbig's notion that America can provide the rational leadership desperately needed in a globalized world seems tragically quaint. Thanks to our corporate media's eagerness to whet Mark's fantasies it matters not that Palin's candidacy proved as constructive as a rampaging pit-bull-- she gave John McCain's wilting campaign a boost and Pat Buchanan a five-week hard-on.

Wait--Sarah's on T.V. wearing red lipstick and three-inch heels? I'll get back to this later--gotta check out those gams--you betcha!