A Tale Of Two Women

Sarah Palin still won't be quiet. She still doesn't get it. The more she blusters about bad jokes and her fourteen-year-old daughter, the more the story stays current. She rips Letterman a new one every chance she gets, and talks about how demeaning this kind of joke is to women, but she fails to understand that every time she opens her yap, she keeps the joke alive. Sarah Palin, with her TV tour of rants and raves, is demeaning to women.

From Tina Brown at The Daily Beast:

"As Sarah Palin’s furious claims of being victimized by David Letterman once again became catnip for cable hosts, a more elevated female narrative was being played out in Washington’s Foggy Bottom. On Friday afternoon, Melanne Verveer, Hillary Clinton’s former East Wing chief of staff and founder of the Vital Voices democracy initiative, was sworn in as ambassador at large for global women's issues by her friend of 25 years, the secretary of State.
Standing in the grand Benjamin Franklin Rooms amidst a sea of some 400 animated guests—most of them unostentatious women of stature and purpose, and many of them mentored at some time or other by Verveer or Hillary—I felt someone should pluck the combustible Alaskan away from whatever rancid talk show she was headed for and make her watch a vignette of what real female power looks like."

You see, Sarah, powerful women don't kvetch and moan about a bad joke made by a late night talk show host--a joke that would have withered and died, by now. Powerful women work together and set a standard, raise the bar, empower each other to do more, and better.

Powerful women work toward a goal of something other than national press; powerful women work toward a goal worthy of attaining

Tina Brown:

"Here’s one thing Sarah could learn from Hillary: Cheerfulness is more impressive than resentment. Is the secretary of State lugging around a Palin-size grudge about having to play a subservient role to the man who humbled her at the polls? Doesn’t Clinton have a better reason to resent Obama than Palin has to bang on about Letterman? I mean, if it weren’t for Barack, Hillary would now be president of the United States. How’s that for “hurtful?” Yet the president and his highest-ranking Cabinet officer seem to be getting along like Nick and Nora Charles.

....

Here’s something Palin could learn from Letterman: Leave the jokes to the comedians. Does anyone believe that Palin really, truly thought Letterman’s sexual joke was about her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, not her 18-year-old, Bristol—who, after all, actually did get knocked up? My reading is she didn't believe it, but she was happy to have you believe it. Happy to have people—too many of them, unfortunately, who only pay attention with one ear—be her target audience."

This goes to what I was talking about yesterday, with the media reporting half-truths and outright lies that those disenfranchised and marginalized folks will use as their next cause, their next attack, be it verbally or with bullets and bombs. Sarah Palin is twisting the joke and the story to suit what she wants to talk about, when the joke--bad as it was--was about something entirely different. She is twisting the truth to suit her own personal need, and political gain, and people are buying it.

This is dangerous and stupid, and someone who portrayed herself as ready, willing and able to be ' heartbeat away' should know better.

Tina Brown:
"Finally, here’s a second thing Sarah could learn from Hillary: It’s the substance that sustains, not the exposure. In terms of raw talent on the hustings, Sarah Palin is far more of a political natural than Hillary Clinton. She might get somewhere in the long run if she would just go away in the short run and read some books. Her problem is that she thinks the popular culture is the culture. She has no context, no knowledge of the world to offset her obsessive Nixonian flailings about how everyone is belittling her stature as the hardworking governor of Alaska. Her answers on CNN about Pentagon cuts in missile defense that affect her state were as halting and glassy-eyed as a novice U.N. translator's attempt to grapple with Uzbek in his earphones."

I've been begging Sarah to go away since she lost the election, not because I thought she might learn something and grow up, and maybe come back better prepared, more intelligent and less of a one-note politician, but simply because I was, and still am, sick of her rhetoric.

Sarah Palin is a panderer. She says what the audience wants to hear; she offers no substance because, with Sarah Palin, there is no substance. She could go away for ten years and she'd still be a bottom-feeder.

Tina Brown:
"Yet if Palin added some depth to her knowledge, she has so much she could offer. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a mother of five who translated what she wanted for her kids into fighting for affordable health care and clean air. Palin has a disabled child, one of a sadly ignored subset of Americans whose chances to live a better life desperately need her celebrity spotlight. Teenage mothers could use a leg up from Palin, too, but she’s too busy ginning up celebrity feuds.
Take a leaf out of Hillary’s book, Sarah....Bide your time, don’t waste it. Study up—and shut up. If you were a real power woman, we wouldn’t be hearing from you right now, so soon after your vice presidential flameout. You’d be too busy preparing yourself for the day when you have something to say worth hearing."

That's where Tina and I differ. i seriously doubt Sarah Palin will ever learn anything. She is too busy pandering to the lowest common denominator. She is too busy battling David Letterman, who has actually apologized again, than doing battle either for her state or for this country.

Full story HERE