Just Plain Folks

When Sarah Palin spoke to the Republican National Convention last year I have to admit that I kind of liked her. I didn’t agree with her right wing stance but since I grew up experiencing the prejudice that exists against people in the flyover part of the country, it was refreshing to see someone on the national stage being proud of their rural roots. Unfortunately, the beauty was only skin deep. Once she did the interview with Katie Couric and was unable to answer even the most basic questions, I knew there was nothing behind the pretty facade.

I haven’t read “Going Rogue” yet but I did get home in time to watch most of the Oprah interview and I’ve seen various excerpts from her book on the internet. From what I’ve read so far, she comes across as a petty, vindictive woman who is totally ignorant of anything outside of her own insular world and is proud of it. I wanted her to prove the stereotypes wrong and instead she’s just fed into them. From throwing a tantrum and quitting her position as governor of Alaska because people in her own party dared to criticize her to resorting to juvenile name-calling like referring to Andree McLeod, a Republican watchdog from Anchorage, as the falafel lady and dismissing Katie Couric, an award-winning journalist, as the perky one with low self esteem, she’s proven herself to be totally unfit to occupy any elected office, much less the presidency.

I was amused when I saw on newsmax.com that Sarah Palin didn’t rule out a Palin/Glenn Beck ticket in 2012. In the last few months Beck has been compared to the Lonesome Rhodes character in the movie “A Face in the Crowd” and every time Sarah Palin speaks there’s a line from a song in that film that runs through my mind, pork chop eating, Sunday go to meeting, just plain folks. That seems to be Sarah Palin’s appeal in a nutshell and there's nothing wrong with that but to be president, I expect a little more.