Sarah Palin has resigned as Governor of the great state of Alaska. She says she is off to write a book, and will be busy organizing Republicans across America. Good for her. She can now add to her ample resume of achievement. Before gaining the Republican Party nomination for Vice-President of the United States, Ms. Palin had a substantive – that’s right, substantive – track record.
For starters, she won the Miss Wasillah Beauty Pageant. No mean feat. In 1984, she took third place in the Miss Alaska Beauty Pageant, and while that might have been disappointing, she did walk away with the Miss Congeniality Award. Bet you thought Sandra Bullock won that, didn’t you? Nope. It was Sarah Palin.
In 1987, she earned a B.S. degree (not sure if that’s Bachelor of Science or just B.S.) in communication, with an emphasis on journalism, from the University of Idaho. Then, she was a sports reporter for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. Yes, that would be the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. She then eloped with her childhood sweetheart Todd, and went off to help him with his commercial fishing business.
Then she began her political career. She ran for town council in Wasilla, an Alaska town with some 5,000 residents, and defeated her opponent by 220 votes, which sounds close but really wasn’t because she got 530 votes and he got 310. Later, she was re-elected by a landslide – 413 votes to 185 – and before that term was out she became Mayor.
Along with these substantive accomplishments, she was a mother. She had five – count ’em five – children, and managed to keep her figure. And she didn’t give her kids names like John and Carol. No sir. The Palin children are named Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. Palin also has one grandchild, albeit this latest offspring is technically on the illegitimate side of the ledger, but hey it wasn’t the kid’s fault.
Now it’s true that when she was Governor of Alaska and on the John McCain ticket, Palin was duped by a Montreal radio host into thinking she was being interviewed by Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France. ‘Sarkozy’ asked if she would accompany him on a trip to hunt baby seals, and from what I gather, she accepted. I know this sounds hard to believe. It would be like someone running for president who thinks that the Prime Minister of Canada is John Poutine.
Couldn’t happen.
Palin once said that the U.S. military is on a mission from God, which brings to mind the very important and substantive mission that John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd were on in ‘The Blues Brothers.’
Could you imagine the state of the world if someone like Sarah Palin was president?
She is against sex education in the classroom because she favours abstinence. So, if she were president, U.S. policy on fighting AIDS in Africa would be against the promotion of condoms. Speaking of Africa, she didn’t know that it was a continent. But that’s OK because she is up on international relations since Alaska is between Russia and Canada. She said so in that famous interview with Katie Couric.
Sarah Palin is an avid, evangelical fundamentalist who favours teaching creationism in public schools, and is against abortion in any circumstance, even for a young rape victim.
If such a person was in the Oval Office, what would happen to America’s leadership role in science? The nation that brought us the automobile, the airplane, the computer, the Internet, what have you, would be against stem cell research. If Sarah Palin were president, the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) would be turning over in its grave, and this organization is still alive.
There is no doubt that a U.S. president with the mind-set of Sarah Palin would advance the agenda of the Christian right, and the U.S. – and the entire world – would be left in a pickle.
We’re lucky she resigned.
Jerry Amernic's Weblog 