Thank You, Sarah Palin

Is it cheating if my second post is the one I actually wrote four months ago? Well, maybe. But, I figure I'm writing for a minute right now, which completes my daily goal. Plus, since I referred to it yesterday, it makes sense to include it right away. Plus plus, it was the impetus for starting the whole thing. Plus plus plus, I still think it's relevant. So, there you are: 3.65 good reasons...

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(originally published 2008.10.18)

Thank you, Sarah Palin

Yes, I'm thanking Sarah Palin. I conceived this blog a few months ago and wavered back and forth, forth and back between birthing this slimy, toothy beast and exposing all my earthly inadequacies, versus squelching it, letting it starve and wither and die before coming to any sort of fruition. And then I saw a few minutes of Palin's interview with Katie Couric and could not find a valid reason not to express my disgust, anger, dismay, and offense. Frankly, the whole interview sucked (on Palin’s part, not Couric’s), but the bit that got me off the couch was Palin’s idiotic explanation as to why she hasn’t demonstrated curiosity about the world.

In case you missed the interview, it went like this:

Couric: In preparing for this conversation, a lot of our viewers … and Internet users wanted to know why you did not get a passport until last year. And they wondered if that indicated a lack of interest and curiosity in the world.

Palin: I'm not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go off and travel the world. No, I've worked all my life. In fact, I usually had two jobs all my life until I had kids. I was not a part of, I guess, that culture. The way that I have understood the world is through education, through books, through mediums that have provided me a lot of perspective on the world.

I realize she was trying to draw a distinction between herself and the "elitists" of this country. She doesn't need their votes; she needs the votes of "Joe Six-Pack" and his buddies at the sports bar. She's fishing for the votes of the population that undulates between “conservative values” and affordable healthcare. Isn't that why she was chosen to be the Number Two on the McCain ticket? (Aside from being a Hillary-offcast magnet and token [fill-in-the-blank], but that's a subject for another time.)

What really irks me, as a “middle-class” person who has lived and traveled somewhat extensively abroad and highly values those experiences, is that Palin might actually be able to convince some voters that people who travel are in fact somehow privileged.

How does it irk me? Let me count the ways…

1. She’s appealing to people in this country who will buy into her purported belief that people who travel are elitist, rich, priveleged. And by winning people over on that premise, she’s deceiving them—and that’s irresponsible and just plain dirty.
2. She’s deriding the curiosity, intelligence and fortitude of people who do travel—many of whom, like me, have worked multiple jobs to save the money and/or have secured jobs abroad in order to experience other cultures.
3. She’s trying to pass off incuriosity as being working class. Since when is one associated with the other? And how insulting is that, anyway?
4. She’s completely disregarding the fact that you can’t truly understand a culture unless you experience it first-hand, which includes walking the streets, meeting locals and living it through sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and hands-on experience.

Sorry, Sarah, you can read all you want (and what do you read, by the way?), and books provide excellent foundation for knowledge and insight, but no book can take the place of life. That’s why some people, perhaps your husband included, skip college to get on with life and get a job. That’s why one can’t just become a doctor from reading books—one has to complete a residency. And that’s why, as a candidate for our country’s next Vice President, you are ostensibly trying to convince people that you have enough experience to lead.

Now, that said, I really don’t think Palin is dumb enough to believe everything she says—it does take some kind of skill and insight to be able to win people over to your side. It’s just too bad that she thinks the way to do it is by siccing on people who are naïve enough to buy into her brand of “regular” (wink, wink). So listen here, gullible people: Understand that learning from books has minimal influence on how you will conduct yourself with foreign heads of state. And if they’re history books, say goodbye to any real cognition of current events. Being able to see Russia from your porch says more for your eyesight than your political foresight. And if one really has a desire to travel (and, ergo, to really learn about other cultures), well, where there’s a will, there’s a way—it’s that simple.

It’s disappointing that Palin has inadvertently (?) chosen to define herself as a stereotypical politician—selfish, dishonest, power-hungry—and set such low standards for future women politicians, when she could have chosen instead to be a beacon of respectability and admiration, something worth aspiring to. But again, that’s a topic for another day.

So thank you, Sarah Palin, for getting me riled up enough to get me off the couch and launch my thoughts into cyberspace. At least you’ve done one thing right.

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
—St. Augustine