10 Reasons Sarah Palin Exasperates Me

I’m too lazy to actually write this evening, so here’s another silly list to tide me over. I went all fangirly over Rachel Maddow earlier, so I figure why not get both extremes out of the way.

I think the best place to start would be:

1. This stupid Runner’s World photo, which sums her up perfectly. I’m a runner too, lady. We don’t lounge about in our living rooms in full makeup with perfect hair. And the American flag draped over the chair is tacky and disrespectful, and the two Blackberrys? Why exactly?
2. She single-handedly reinforces the stereotype that women are silly, manipulative bitches who aren’t qualified for positions of power.
3. She makes me feel like a bad feminist. I know I should always speak out against sexism, but when Palin blatantly uses her sex appeal to control people I get so angry that I come dangerously close to thinking she deserves whatever she gets.
4. She gives a fresh new face to intolerance and ignorance, ensuring their survival for at least another generation.
5. She makes headlines in New Zealand all the time, forcing me to explain, over and over again, that not all Americans are like that. I thought that chore was over once Bush left office, but oh no!
6. The winking. And the “you betchas” and the “doggone its” and the doin' the bad sentence structure also.
7. She won’t shut up, and the media won’t stop falling all over themselves covering every word she says, and I’m hopelessly addicted to all of it.
8. Her new gig at Fox News. Actually I’m kind of grateful for that because it’s the one thing she’s done that makes perfect sense.
9. One of these days she’s going to make Andrew Sullivan lose his damn mind, and then whose blog will I read with my morning coffee every day?
10. During the infamous Katie Couric interview, Palin was asked why she didn’t get a passport until the year before the election. She answered, “I’m not one of those [...] who perhaps graduate college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go off and travel the world. Nooo, I worked all my life.” Seriously, bite me.

And look, I know, I know I’m only feeding the media frenzy and that’s exactly what she wants, but I honestly can’t help it. If Rachel Maddow represents my newly discovered progressive ideals, Sarah Palin is a funhouse-mirror version of my former Bible-thumping, flute-playing, distance-running Republican self. It’s like my subconscious invented her and now she’s burst forth into the world to torment me.

In which case, um, sorry guys.