Be afraid. Be very afraid.
First off, apologies if this entry has the vague markings of a rant, but when all you are bombarded with via the wonderful medium of television is almost 100% American, there comes a point where you want and need to get things off your chest.
As you'll know from a previous post, I currently don't have access to any non-financial news channels aside from Fox News which claims repeatedly to be "fair and balanced", ergo not supporting one or the other of the presidential candidates (or their 'Veeps' for that matter - yes, folks, even V, P is too polysyllabic for those Yanks). I hope for the good of all that is sensible in the world that the US election isn't getting the same volume of coverage in the UK, but even that wouldn't be so bad if I could be given a cast-iron guarantee (from Mr. Big Fox himself) that I will NEVER HAVE TO SEE ANOTHER STORY ABOUT HOW ABSOLUTELY APPALLING IT IS TO BE ATTACKING [SAINT] SARAH PALIN! (Sorry about the shouting.)
What is the matter with people?? Why are they suddenly so collectively in love with this woman because she has a 'normal' family? Quite frankly, if I'd called my children (hypothetically of course; I haven't surpassed all medical miracles and had not one, but multiple secret children in the last four months) Track, Trig and Bristol, I would expect most of my family and friends to question my fundamental 'normality'! (On a separate note, old moose-hunter clearly hasn't come across the Cockney-rhyming slang phrase 'Bristol City', or she might have considered alternative crazy names for her eldest daughter...)
As for the indignant shock demonstrated by many over the suggestions that Palin's five-month-old son is actually her daughter's, isn't this just the age-old dance played out between politics and the media? Surely when you agree to jump on the 'all-aboard for the White House' bandwagon, you should expect every journalist and his team of researchers to attempt to dig up and grab hold of anything that might a) help sell some papers/magazines, and b) cast doubt over your credentials. It's certainly not the first time the media has speculated over something that isn't actually true. From a very cynical point of view, I would have thought it's the media's job to uncover anything that the electorate can use when considering where to place their vote.
And when it comes to St. Palin of Alaska, there is much to be worried about, but for some reason all the majority of Americans seem to be concerned with is that she is a) a woman, b) not too displeasing to the eye, c) a wife/mother who also has a job - therefore she must be just like everyone else. Hmmm...she seems to be a tiny little bit better off than 'everyone else', but that's just my opinion.
I don't want to get into her credentials - as I'm sure you can research them for yourself and it's a bit of a dull subject - but next time you see her on TV, ponder over this for a second: exactly how maddeningly irksome is the woman's voice???!
picture source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitzcelt/715565362/
