I almost hate to give Sarah Palin more press, since the furor seems to be dying down, but what-the-hell, my 20 blog readers aren't going to make that much difference, anyway. So, here's the thing: every educated woman I know between the ages of 25 and 60 is furious about McCain's choice. Every single one of us has the same reaction when we look at Palin and her dog-racin' First Dude, her pregnant teenage daughter, the baby she keeps toting around like a sack of flour: Trailer Trash.
Now, given that I was raised in the South, I know a thing or two about Trailer Trash. I also know that I, and my family, have worked hard to avoid that label. To make sure the kids stayed in school, to keep the drag racing to a minimum, to avoid trotting out crazy aunts and differently-abled kids as a kind of circus sideshow. Even though it almost killed my mother to do so, she talked to us about sex (and according to her teenage grandchildren, she still talks incessantly to them about sex -- and the importance of birth control). My mother, God bless her soul, even got a midnight paper route to help keep me in my top-notch private university -- which I happily attended for four years straight, earning my degree before trotting off to another college for an MBA. Despite a familiarity with, and perhaps an affinity for, humble things, Trailer Trash we were not.
But there's sexiness in being Trailer Trash these days, I suppose. After all, Britney Spears has made a career of it. But Cheetos, cut-offs and bare feet in gas station bathrooms are not the stuff of thoughtful folks. And I can imagine Ms. Palin, for all her lipstick and her carefully-coiffed hair, wandering into the truck stop loo, moose gun and cigarette in hand.
I, for one, can't help noting the irony that McWalnuts, after lambasting Obama as an empty-headed celebrity by comparing him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, picked the political version of Britney Spears as his running mate. Way to go, John. You proved pretty definitively that publicity, not policy, drives the Straight Talk express. Even Paris showed you up with a humorous -- and intelligent --riposte. Who's the empty-headed celebrity now?
Bring out the moose-hunter huntin' gun, Obama. Those of us who have abandoned the cutoffs, the Marlboro's and the First Dudes in favor of careers, families and lives of respectability are behind you 100%. Even Britney's cleaning up her act. Maybe we should give her an "Obama" sticker for her truck, and put her on the Dem ticket in a few years: "Britney in 2012. If you liked Palin, you'll LOVE her!"
