Palienation

I feel genuinely bad for Sarah Palin. Have you seen the Katie Couric interview?



She is clearly in over her head, and she knows it. The bravado she rode in on at the RNC has long since faded, and now she's got another whole month to perform without the benefit of pyrotechnics. McCain was incredibly short-sighted and plain ol' sexist in choosing Palin as his running mate. He gives no intimation of actually trusting Palin, or respecting her as a professional. He bought her to show off to the boys-- young, sexy, ignorant, ambitious, and smart (if not savvy). The McCain campaign flaunts her like the first lady Cindy McCain doesn't appear to be playing.

And not being a feminist herself, Palin doesn't have the guts to call out the bullshit. They're tokenizing her, brandishing her femininity like the social phallus McCain lacks. They expect her to dance not like an organ grinder's monkey, which is what we're used to in the VP slot, but like a stripper sharing and baring her feminine wiles to garner cheers and cash for men in the back office who don't care that she's also getting catcalls and bottles whipped at her.

Watching that interview with Katie Couric, I saw desperation, as if she wanted to stop the interview and yell, "What do you /want/ from me? I am clearly not qualified for this! My personal and family life is a mess! I never wanted this! If I fuck this up, my career is OVER, and I don't have the skill set to win!" McCain has led her out like a pig to the slaughter, lipstick and all.

I hope she grows a pair and writes an expose memoir in a few years that details the horror of this campaign and analyzes it in a feminist framework. I also hope this is a turning point for her and that she shaves her head and becomes a radical militant lesbian separatist. It's what America needs, now more than ever.