What’s left to say about Sarah Palin? Just some observations about her attackers. I cannot believe the outpouring of hatred towards her I noticed during the days after she was introduced. Every intelligent woman in this town that I came across (and by intelligent, I mean ‘able to breathe on their own’) loathed her. Intelligent men did so a bit more quietly, passively.
We all thought “the race is over!”
A little alert flag goes off in my head each time I hear someone pick on some feminine aspect of Barracuda. Yes, Barack’s completely right, family should be off-limits. Democrats have had some loser family members in the past too, and it’s probably unfair to judge someone by their family. Do you want to be judged from mistakes your family members make?
“But she has a responsibility to corral her children!” you may say (especially if you were a Republican and Barracuda was a Democrat). But here in the 21st century, the century of Women’s Rights, do we still talk like that? Can’t it be the Man Of The House’s job?
And any derogatory reference to her Miss Alaska Runner-Up status scares me; if she were a fat, ugly woman, would it be better? Would we think of her as smarter? I’m worried that anti-Barracudists are attacking mirrors and they’re going to get themselves in a lot of trouble. There are plenty of real worries.
My gorgeous, light-up-my-life, yoga-instructor little sister is now a Republican. We were brought up as Democrats, but she has married a very rich man who hates the idea of having to pay taxes and is more than slightly homophobic; other than that — he’s a bang-up fellow. Sister, herself, is very concerned that a Muslim democrat in office wouldn’t continue to go after the Iraqis, who attacked us during 9/11. And she loves the idea of a hockey-mom as president — total score for all us women!
My mom wants me to stage an intervention, like when I got mom to stop drinking. She thinks I can save my sister and turn her back to the light side of the Force. My dad says I can’t say anything to sister because it will cause problems between her and her husband. (and he’s right.) My Husband, at this point, would probably rather I stop talking to any of my family members all together. (and he’s right.)
But mom’s distraught. How can her daughter bring up her kids to believe this crap?
So the other night, I finally broke down and wrote an email.
You know those terrible emails that you get from preschool buddies? The ones about how anti-Jewish Barack is? Or how Jewish he is? Or how Muslim? Or proof that Hillary is gay? Or all the statistics, baked on one side or the other, about how each candidate has caused the hugest tax increase in history? I’ll be sending the Democratic platform version of that to my sister. I’m desparate. I see a woman on TV saying “I’d like a vice-president who is just like me, a normal, hard-working hockey-mom,” and I start to question all I know and believe in. It’s like someone telling me 2+2=5. It’s like Brave New World.
Dear Sister,
I know you’re a Republican, but I don’t understand how you can support a VP candidate that is against abortion rights, doesn’t care about wildlife, and believes that our troops in Iraq are on a “mission from God.”
And for the record, Obama is not a Muslim. He’s, unfortunately, a Christian. And he’s not un-American. He gave up a high-paying job to help out his community. (in Chicago, in America.) Palin makes fun of his community support, but it’s a lot more Jesus-like than what she’s done.
I’m sure there are plenty of reasons to vote Republican, but I hope you are voting that way for the right ones. I don’t want to see our children go off to fight wars in the Middle East, and I want to have the right to choose whether or not I have an abortion.
And I don’t want creationism taught in schools, and if the Ex-Toddler gets sick, I want to be able to use stem cells to fix him.
And I hit send.
And I felt like an asshole.
And she never responded.
I think she’s too busy teaching yoga.