Monday, July 6, 2009

Sarah Barracuda Leaves Alaska for the Big Time













When John McCain announced last August in Ohio that Sarah Palin would be his running mate for '08, I remember thinking, 'Wow. The cameras love her.'
I still maintain that the reason why Palin gets so much media attention is largely due to her aesthetics and how it is captured and translated via the lens. And yet she keeps bashing the media for being unfair to her not seemingly realizing that her refusal to engage them (the media) in a substantial way might perhaps be the main reason for the occasional, ok, not-so-occasional ridicule.

While Palin is seriously uninformed about a lot of issues, she oozes a kind of stamina and tenacity that is rare to see. Now that she's announced that she is resigning as Alaska's governor, she's signaled her actual interest in entering national politics. Vanity Fair has a gripping peace on her. A paragraph of note says:

"In dozens of conversations during a recent visit to Alaska, it was easy to learn that there has always been a counter-narrative about Palin, and indeed it has become the dominant one. It is the story of a political novice with an intuitive feel for the temper of her times, a woman who saw her opportunities and coolly seized them. In every job, she surrounded herself with an insular coterie of trusted friends, took disagreements personally, discarded people who were no longer useful, and swiftly dealt vengeance on enemies, real or perceived. “Remember,” says Lyda Green, a former Republican state senator who once represented Palin’s home district, and who over the years went from being a supporter of Palin’s to a bitter foe, “her nickname in high school was ‘Barracuda.’ I was never called Barracuda. Were you? There’s a certain instinct there that you go for the jugular.”

Read it all here.





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10 comments:

Liam said...

in all horrifying honesty, she probably doesn't know much less than some other national political figures.

Unknown said...

She;s the gift that keeps on giving isn't she?
Did you read Gail COlins' peace on her?
She writes,
' So if she’s starting to run, it will be as the same reporter-avoiding, generalization-spouting underachiever that she was last time around.

Now we know she not only doesn’t have the concentration to read a policy paper, she can’t focus long enough to finish the job she was hired to do.

On Friday, Palin said that finishing out her term would be just too easy. “Many just accept that lame-duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck and ‘milk it.’ I’m not putting Alaska through that,” she said.

Apparently, she’s going to put the rest of us through it instead.'

ha!

JJ said...

Right, many of these people aren't a beacon of education and information. Who was is that said politics was like Hollywood but with less attractive people?

Sean said...

I'm amazed at how much air time she gets even though she's very resisting of high-quality press coverage. Both Maureen Down and Gail Colins went to town, man. Very good pieces!

Anonymous said...

Her ball analogy was the funniest. As Whoopie Goldberg said, 'you're not Koby, man.....' :)

Anonymous said...

Kobe

Shaun said...

The Vanity Fair cover is quite tough, actually. I forget the name of the author, but the Times had a slightly more 'objective' take on her and how she has had to surpass a lot of prejudice whether it's class- or gender-based. I'll try to find it and will post the link.

Sra said...

I find Palin quite amusing. I don't think the Republican party wants to favor her too highly, so I don't see why she would expect to enter the national ring at this point. Seems to me that serving out your term would work in your favor. But I don't really know much about politics.

Canada said...

Bri, Vanity Fair has a gripping 'piece,' I'm assuming not peace. The slip's apropos, btw. :)

Candace said...

canada girl, that is.
Candace