[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img]The closest cult-of-personality figure to Sarah Palin I have seen in my lifetime was Elvis.
Although she only has been on stage for 17 months, Ms. Palin has whizzed right by Elvis. She became the hottest number in American politics much faster than Mr. Presley rose to be the planet’s No. 1 entertainer because today there is a journalist on every corner. Coverage has exploded from selective in Elvis’s heyday to ubiquitous in the day of you, me and Sarah. Make that Sarah, you and me.
The Joke Who Became President should be grateful the election isn’t this afternoon. Sarah might score the first shutout in Presidential history — except for the uninformed Jewish and black liberals who don’t believe anyone except Joe Biden.
The liberal boys who write and comment in the shallow end of journalistic pool insist that they can’t stand Sarah.
Wrong. In truth, they are enamored of her. They are treating her like the first love of their teenage lives.
Have You Heard the Latest?
Foppish liberal boys from coast to coast, from Canada to Mexico, write millions of Sarah words every day.
Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. Politicized women’s libbers who wish they were born as men can’t stop scolding her. They act as if Sarah is their teenage daughter (whom they probably would have aborted) who stayed out an hour too late. But they know anytime they talk to an effete liberal journalist about Sarah, they will almost instantly show up in print as a member of that no longer distinguished crowd of Sarah critics.
To boast of being a Sarah critic is like standing atop the Culver Hotel and shouting that you, you of all people, had a hamburger this afternoon at McDonald’s. I mean, who didn’t?
You could fit all of the serious left-wing political observers into a Culver City telephone booth. Even they find talking about Sarah, at least once each week, is a temptation that is not to be overcome. Further, Sarah essays generate more response than any other person on earth, including the dethroned President Where Are We.
But those liberal boys who feint dislike are, typically, out of sync. Once again they have misplaced the verb “can’t” in their favorite sentence. It’s not that they genuinely dislike her. They meant to say “I can’t stop talking about that lady.”
It is okay not to approve of her appearance, her philosophy, her tactics. But, having been trained in left-wing schools of throwing a bucket of paint over people you don’t like, from 5-year-olds to 95-year-olds, they find that Republicans are such plump targets they cannot help themselves.
Who Can Remember Everything?
They make fun of Ms. Sarah when she makes plans to address the Tea Party Convention in Nashville. They make fun of her $100,000 speaking fee. But they are suddenly struck dumb when it emerges, as usual, that she is donating to charity the entire amount.
When the liberal boys want to rebuke dreaded non-liberals, they all use the same M.O. — on cue, they all say that the caveman Republican or cavewoman Republican must have dropped from school at about the fourth grade.
That crack is supposed to encourage their audiences to double over. Or didn’t you see Lawrence O’Donnell and Keith Olberman rolling around on the MSNBC studio floor the other night after making fun of a young Republican man who disagreed with their take on the world.
You are aware of the darnedest, most consistent coincidence in modern political history.
If you will check the history books, you will see that the most reprehensible clods to claw across the earth, in public, in the past century were all of the Republican Presidents — from McKinley to T. Roosevelt to Taft to Harding to Coolidge to Eisenhower to Nixon to Ford to Reagan to G.H.W. Bush.
By contrast, Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton unanimously are remembered as supreme scholars from the womb who almost were too erudite to rule over mere American troglodytes.
Such a lopsided scenario perfectly sets the rhetorical stage for the lovely Ms. Sarah Palin, late of Alaska, to gracefully step onto the stage.
But the liberal boys have overlooked one salient fact: The American people, whom they regularly skewer, love Sarah. They say the widespread anger merely is a symptom peculiar to bumpkins.
A girl on the pretty far left, a scholar at Penn, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, like many fellow liberals, spits in the eye of American voters. She reluctantly acknowledges a groundswell of anger among American voters, but says they are misguided, ill-informed, and, worst of all, unsophisticated. “The public is not this highly rational, nuanced creature,” says Ms. KHJ, who lives more than 980 miles from Los Angeles. “When the public is unhappy, it blames the status quo,” and that, she says, is why — unfairly to Democrats in Washington — there likely will be change in November.
While a different liberal journalist tells us every day that Ms. Palsin sounds as if she took voice lessons in Fargo, Fresno or Cleveland, and studied at the feet of Rush, America falls deeper in love with this phenomenal personality.
They mob her everywhere she goes. Here is a report from last Sunday’s Daytona 500, the hottest car race in the country.
By Andrea Adelson
of the Orlando Sentinel
DAYTONA BEACH – Palin-mania easily surpassed Danica-mania at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday.
While Patrick got all the headlines for the better part of two weeks, she had no stake in the Daytona 500. Palin did, and as a VIP guest for the race, she ate up all the attention.
When she arrived for the drivers meeting, Palin was immediately mobbed. She briefly chatted with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, shook hands with supporters and smiled big.
She took a seat up front next to Harry Connick Jr., who sang the national anthem for the race. When NASCAR president Mike Helton acknowledged her as a special guest, she got the largest ovation from the room, packed from the front to the back with drivers, team members, support personnel and onlookers.
After sitting through the meeting, Palin could not get out the door. Fans mobbed her, asking for pictures and autographs. Her 12-person entourage, comprised of track security, a policeman, friends and spokespeople, tried to get her to the door and to her next appearance. But Palin could not help herself, and kept signing and posing for pictures.
Even when she was able to get out the door, she stopped every few feet to take pictures. One fan asked where her husband, Todd, was on Valentine's Day. Palin said he couldn't make it because he's in Alaska preparing for the Iron Dog, the world's longest snow-mobile race.
As she got moving again, Palin stopped when she saw a boy in a wheelchair to say hello and sign an autograph. As she walked ahead, she answered two questions about attending her first Daytona 500.
“This is awesome,” said a slim Palin, wearing designer jeans, a smart charcoal coat and sky-high black stiletto heels. “It's an All-Americana event. A good, patriotic, wonderful event that's bringing a whole lot of people together. I think it's good for our country.”
When asked what a trip to a swing state like Florida does for her political ambitions, the former Alaska governor said, “Haven't thought a darn thing about the politics of this. I'm thinking about this good, active, speed-loving event that a lot of Alaskans, too, are really into. We've got our snow-machine races up there, and this is, of course, on a much greater scale, same type of sport though, same type of breath-taking, speed-loving, All-American event that we like to see up north.”
Palin, in town to speak at the Chamber of Commerce on Monday and sign copies of her book, “Going Rogue,” continued on toward the track, stopping to take pictures with soldiers, firemen, men, women and children. She entered pit road and stopped to meet Richard Petty. Then she made her way to the tri-oval stage in front of the grandstands, where she delivered a 30-second message that roused the crowd.
As she tried to make her way out, Palin kept stopping for her fans, who shouted, “We love you, Sarah!” Her spokespeople kept screaming, “We gotta go! We gotta go!” But Palin kept obliging, relishing all the love.
Read Andrea Adelson's blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/collegegridiron365 and e-mail her at aadelson@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2010, Orlando Sentinel
