If Crowley can earn his OJ blogger paycheck copy-pasting George Will, than I can, I believe, do this:
Vice in Go-Go Boots?
By MAUREEN DOWD
PITTSBURGH
The guilty pleasure I miss most when I’m out slogging on the campaign trail is the chance to sprawl on the chaise and watch a vacuously spunky and generically sassy chick flick.
So imagine my delight, my absolute astonishment, when the hokey chick flick came out on the trail, a Cinderella story so preposterous it’s hard to believe it’s not premiering on Lifetime. Instead of going home and watching “Miss Congeniality” with Sandra Bullock, I get to stay here and watch “Miss Congeniality” with Sarah Palin.
Sheer heaven.
It’s easy to see where this movie is going. It begins, of course, with a cute, cool unknown from Alaska who has never even been on “Meet the Press” triumphing over a cute, cool unknowable from Hawaii who has been on “Meet the Press” a lot.
Americans, suspicious that the Obamas have benefited from affirmative action without being properly grateful, and skeptical that Michelle really likes “The Brady Bunch” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” reject the 47-year-old black contender as too uppity and untested.
Instead, they embrace 72-year-old John McCain and 44-year-old Sarah Palin, whose average age is 58, a mere two years older than the average age of the Obama-Biden ticket. Enthusiastic Republicans don’t see the choice of Palin as affirmative action, despite her thin résumé and gaping absence of foreign policy knowledge, because they expect Republicans to put an underqualified “babe,” as Rush Limbaugh calls her, on the ticket. They have a tradition of nominating fun, bantamweight cheerleaders from the West, like the previous Miss Congeniality types Dan Quayle and W., and then letting them learn on the job. So they crash into the globe a few times while they’re learning to drive, what’s the big deal?
Obama may have been president of The Harvard Law Review, but Palin graduated from the University of Idaho with a minor in poli-sci and worked briefly as a TV sports reporter. And she was tougher on the basketball court than the ethereal Obama, earning the nickname “Sarah Barracuda.”
The legacy of Geraldine Ferraro was supposed to be that no one would ever go on a blind date with history again. But that crazy maverick and gambler McCain does it, and conservatives and evangelicals rally around him in admiration of his refreshingly cynical choice of Sarah, an evangelical Protestant and anti-abortion crusader who became a hero when she decided to have her baby, who has Down syndrome, and when she urged schools to debate creationism as well as that stuffy old evolution thing.
Palinistas, as they are called, love Sarah’s spunky, relentlessly quirky “Northern Exposure” story from being a Miss Alaska runner-up, and winning Miss Congeniality, to being mayor and hockey mom in Wasilla, a rural Alaskan town of 6,715, to being governor for two years to being the first woman ever to run on a national Republican ticket. (Why do men only pick women as running mates when they need a Hail Mary pass? It’s a little insulting.)
Sarah is a zealot, but she’s a fun zealot. She has a beehive and sexy shoes, and the day she’s named she goes shopping with McCain in Ohio for a cheerleader outfit for her daughter.
As she once told Vogue, she’s learned the hard way to deal with press comments about her looks. “I wish they’d stick with the issues instead of discussing my black go-go boots,” she said. “A reporter once asked me about it during the campaign, and I assured him I was trying to be as frumpy as I could by wearing my hair on top of my head and these schoolmarm glasses.”
This chick flick, naturally, features a wild stroke of fate, when the two-year governor of an oversized igloo becomes commander in chief after the president-elect chokes on a pretzel on day one.
The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait. Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it’s close to Alaska. “Back off, Commie dude,” she says. “I’m a much better shot than Cheney.”
Then she takes off in her seaplane and lands on the White House lawn, near the new ice fishing hole and hockey rink. The “First Dude,” as she calls the hunky Eskimo in the East Wing, waits on his snowmobile with the kids — Track (named after high school track meets), Bristol (after Bristol Bay where they did commercial fishing), Willow (after a community in Alaska), Piper (just a cool name) and Trig (Norse for “strength.”)
“The P.T.A. is great preparation for dealing with the K.G.B.,” President Palin murmurs to Todd, as they kiss in the final scene while she changes Trig’s diaper. “Now that Georgia’s safe, how ’bout I cook you up some caribou hot dogs and moose stew for dinner, babe?”
I could’ve found your post mildly amusing, however I read Maureen’s latest column hours ago. Cut and paste all you want, but make it a fresh post, not stale.
COPY and paste, friend, COPY. It is still up there at the NYT, I did not spirit it away.
Vern:
great post. I hear that Jabalito la Mentirosa was smitten by Palin when she wore her black go-go boots. Brought tears to his eyes and memories of Servite.
Was he a cheerleader there? God forbid!!!!
I read this a while ago, anon, and I’m happy that others in the OC read the NYT. I doubt that many OJ quaffers can stomach reading such a “liberal” source, so it’s a public service on Vern’s part. Many teachers I know from the SAUSD read this blog and refuse to read the LA Times, so Vern is perhaps educating the educators! Seriously, the last resort Palin pick likely demonstrates that no other Repub would run with McCrash. My aged mother switched her allegiance because of this choice, and she lives in a state that counts. Is Mickey weeping?
Rintah
way to go
Centrist Republicans for Obama/Biden
watching the McCain/Palin trainwreck
ok rintrah, i have to admit (in the humility of no caps)
i don’t know anything about some mickey weeping. i keep hearing it and grinning like a fool, but i don’t know … is that some song or movie from the 80’s?
scr your no republican . you agree with far left vern on everything . NOBAMA 08
O great one, some history. The GOP once stood for conservation- far ahead of the DP- and was even known as the Party of Lincoln! Newly enfranchised slaves flocked to the GOP as the Dems used reaction and racism to consolidate electoral power in the South. Learn from SCR. How times have changed… Mickey weeping is the pathos of Orange County, a dream not just deferred, but scraped off, re-financed, paved over with turnpikes(please note New Jersey reference), and resonant with the soft weeping of suburban lawns.
thanks but please, less poetically, who the hell is Mickey?? and I don’t see the Jersey ref. Is it a song, a movie?
‘…when the hokey chick flick came out on the trail, a Cinderella story so preposterous it’s hard to believe it’s not premiering on Lifetime.‘
Shouldn’t that be ‘hockey chick flick?‘ She’s a ‘hockey mom,’ right? Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
SMS
SMS/Rintrah
Love you both…
Great One…
No room for you religious fanatics in the new Republican party…..
I pattern myself after Mac Mathias, Chuck Percy, Chuck Hagel, Nelson Rockefeller, et al….
Americans first who felt/feel a responsibility to our fellow Americans….
I know that is something that runs contrary to your thinking…That is why you are out of touch with mainstream AMERICAN electorate thinking.
Centrist Republicans for OBAMA/BIDEN
watching the McCain/Palin trainwreck
SCR,
Have you read any of Obama’s books? I just started The Audacity of Hope. It came with good recommendations.
RV
Yes I did when it came out…..
Just started The way of the world by Ron Susskind.
highly recommend it to you and SMS
SCR
Hey, quick question while my brain is churning…
Is anyone else starting to think that the now-defunct ABC drama Commander-in-Chief was aired with the intention of conditioning the electorate to the idea of a female POTUS in the unfortunate event of the death of a man people actually elected President?
… just a thought.
SMS
Palin=history
I suspect she is gone by the end of the week
Told you
McCain trainwreck rolls on
I love to see all these Obama supporters attack Palin on the experience, but then plan to vote for Obama. The fact is that Palin has more accomplishments and experience the Obama. Since when does being a street organizer make you qualified to be President? Obama has absolutely no accomplishments and yet he is someone how qualified to be President. While Palin might not have been in office for a long time she already has a long list of accomplishments.
OC Loverboy:
I agree with you that she should be viewed on her experience. One of the questions I would ask is her experience in teaching family values to her kids and especially the idea of consequences of their actions.
Birth Control-I am sure she didnt mention this to her daughter;
Condoms-I am certain that she didnt mention this to her daughter;
Abstinence-This I am sure that she mentioned to her daughter;
My question is what was her daughter doing at the time of the discussion? was it a one time discussion? or was it a ongoing discussion focused on the consequences of personal actions and decision-making?
It obviously didnt take…..
Centrist Republicans for Obama/Biden 2008
watching the McCain trainwreck roll on……
Isnt that a Credence Clearwater Revival song?
Experience???…palin hasnt been in office 2 years and she is the subject of a Legislative investigation to ascertain whether she abused her office in her efforts to fire her ex brother in law from a divorce that occurred 4 years earlier while she was a commissioner?
“Rollin, Rollin, Rollin down a glacier”
SMS–
where are all these red ants coming from???
Jubalito is in Minneapolis/St. Paul for the convention. Sanctuary cities both. Maybe he is practicing his spanish by osmosis linguistic skills at the convention???
OCLoverBoy
I would think that the fact that the Palins are going to be a grandparents is a tremendous achievement and a testament to sound family values foundation in the home…..Wouldnt you???
I enjoyed coming upon this story – worthy work, keep it up!!!!