Call it the Tale of Two Palins. The first is the Palin that Palin thinks she’s supposed to be. The Conservative Leader. The Christian Role Model. The Constitutional Scholar. The woman who once campaigned for the White House and feels compelled to weigh in on the Islamic State militants and Ukraine and the NSA because, who knows, she might run again someday…. And then there’s the other Palin: the one Palin actually, you know, is. The one who isn’t all that curious about world affairs. The one who’s more interested in what’s happening in Alaska than in the lower 48. The one who was propelled to political superstardom, before she was ready, by forces largely beyond her control. And the one who, deep down, in spite of all her bravado and bluster, still doesn’t quite think she deserves all the attention…. When Palin tries to be the first Palin — especially in the early videos, before her handlers start scripting her remarks — she seems like a C student bluffing her way through an oral exam.
I promised myself a good while back that I was done writing about Sarah Palin. Why, I reasoned, do I need to waste my beautiful mind (apologies to Barbara Bush) on Caribou Barbie, who hasn’t had an original or cogent thought since the Reagan Administration. Alaska’s former half-Governor hardly seems worth the time, effort, brain cells, or column inches.
Except that this really isn’t about Palin. Not really. No, it’s more about the inability of a celebrity to come to grip with their creeping and inevitable irrelevance…and how sad it is watching someone who’s hung onto her 15 minutes of fame for far too long. Sarah Palin has managed to transform herself into a walking, talking punch line, satire searching for a place to happen. Her public appearances are little more that tawdry exercises in self-parody that she lacks the self-awareness to recognize, much less admit to herself.
For sports fans, there are few sadder and more pathetic that watching a once-supremely gifted athlete hanging on for too long. The recent example of future Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Marty Brodeur is a perfect example. One of the finest goaltenders in National Hockey League history, Brodeur was for many years a rock in net for the New Jersey Devils. Teammates and Stanley Cups came and went, but Brodeur became the face of the Devils, the gold standard for goaltenders. Then he turned 40, and his skills began to rapidly decline, to the point where he became a backup, playing sparingly as a younger goaltender took his place.
Earlier this season, Brodeur signed with the St. Louis Blues, a team in need of a solid, dependable presence in net. Sadly for him, his skills no longer allowed him to be what he once was. His first game with the Blues was an embarrassment, and as the season progressed it became clear his once-surpassing skills had left him. He resembled a sieve more than an NHL goaltender with a spot in the Hall of Fame almost certainly waiting for him. Finally acceding to what was painfully evident to anyone who watched him trying and failing to do what he previously did with such grace and skill, Brodeur retired this week. There’s every chance that what he’ll be remembered for aren’t the brilliant performances and the Stanley Cups, but for the way he tried to hang on until there was no longer any way to deny that Father Time had long since wreaked havoc upon his once-surpassing physical abilities.
In fairness, Palin was once a reform-minded governor who enjoyed an 88 percent approval rating. But something happened on the way to Des Moines. I suspect the most vicious attacks (especially the “Trig Truther” stuff) radicalized her and embittered her, but I also suspect she also took the easy way out. Instead of going back to Alaska after the 2008 defeat, boning up on the issues, continuing her work as governor, and forging a national political comeback, she cashed in with reality-TV shows and paid speaking gigs.
And so it is with Sarah Palin, who, as Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 Presidential election, became a sensation- a Conservative firebrand willing to shake things up and stand up for…well, turns out it was really only all about herself. Lord knows she was spectacularly unprepared for prime time…but she figured out that she had a brilliant future as a grifter.
After McCain/Palin lost the election, Palin’s thoughts turned to monetizing her fame. Being Governor of Alaska afforded her far too few opportunities to rake in the dough, and it came with too many restrictions. (I know; ethics laws can be SO inconvenient.) Halfway through her term, Palin bolted for greener pastures. Fox News Channel snapped her up, and allowed Caribou Barbie to establish her brand nationwide. The Tea Party was practically custom made for Palin as her folksy bromides and C+ student grasp of the world endeared her with angry White Conservatives with an equally incomplete view of the world.
The trouble with taking the easy way out is that it doesn’t last forever. The people who truly last in this business don’t rely on shortcuts or good looks or gimmicks; they survive on work ethic, wit, and intellect. (That’s why, no matter how grandiose he gets, Newt Gingrich will always have a gig. Newt will always be interesting, because he will always have something to say—something to contribute.)
Before you know it, Palin was everywhere. She wrote books, she had a reality TV series, she gave speeches. She may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but she excelled at attracting money- and there were plenty of Americans willing to practically throw money at her.
Talk about money for nothing.
With the 2016 election cycle around the corner, the attention of many reality-impaired Americans and the mainstream media of course turned to Palin, who over the past seven years has redefined the term “attention whore.” Caribou Barbie has never met a microphone or camera she wouldn’t perform for, especially if someone was writing her a check for it. The beauty of Sarah Palin is that she’d perfected the art of being a money magnet while offering NOTHING of substance. As much as I despise everything she stands for, I have to admire her ability to monetize ignorance and Liberal-bashing. She’s truly elevated getting rich while doing nothing concrete to an art form.
Then came the speech at Rep. Steve King’s Iowa Freedom Summit. It’s a truly, painfully epic train wreck of a speech, and I found myself frankly embarrassed for her. Listening to her, I could almost hear the wheels coming off the wagon, and Sarah Palin was finally exposed for what’s she’s always been: a vacant, vacuous, insincere harpie devoid of ideas but long on willingness to pander and toss cheap personal insults at anyone and everyone left of the political center.
The speech was a rambling slow-motion debacle that lacked only screeching tires, crunching metal, and breaking glass to provide the full effect of the unfolding disaster. After the worst, most embarrassing 35 minutes any aspiring politician could endure, even Conservatives were left with mouths agape and “WTF??” issuing from every pore.
There’s more that only serves to cement Palin’s places as yesterday’s phenomenon, of course. Her internet television channel is evidently something only someone with truly masochistic tendencies could endure. For $9.95/month or $99.95/year, you too can contribute to the monetization of what’s left of Caribou Barbie’s political celebrity.
She may be able to see Russia from her house, but she appears unable to recognize what even those on her side of the ideological fence can no longer ignore: she’s done. After her tour de farce in Iowa, Sarah Palin has a much chance of being elected President as I do being elected Queen of Denmark. Just as it was painful to watch Marty Brodeur flailing away long after he should have retired, watching Palin clumsily trotting out her folksy colloquialisms was excruciating.
Though she would be well-advised to gracefully exit political life, it’s not as if the Teapublican wingnut cupboard will be bare. Over the years, Palin has lent her imprimatur to many politicians who could only charitably be described as bat-$#!% crazy. Without Caribou Barbie’s endorsement, Tea Party darlings like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, and Michele Bachmann would be negotiating a much steeper path to national prominence.
In fact, it’s become a case of the student(s) surpassing the “master.” Some of those endorsed by Palin have proven themselves to be smarter (admittedly, not a very high bar), more politically adept (ditto), and less polarizing. No matter how much she might think otherwise, Palin simply doesn’t have the savvy and political chops to regain the heights she once took as her due.
Yes, indeed…when Schadenfreude and Karma come together, it can be- and in this case truly is- a beautiful thing.
And with that, I happily return to my embargo of anything Caribou Barbie-related. That is all.
