Sniffle

Palin is tough as nails. She will bite the head off a moose and move on. So, no, I don’t feel sorry for her.   — Rebecca Traister

This is the shot that so cleverly accompanies Rebecca Traister’s “The Sarah Palin pity party” at Salon.

Traister, who I’m 100% in agreement with, pushes back on everyone and anyone who is even remotely feeling sorry for Sarah Palin right now, either because she supposedly got herself in over her head, or has somehow been exploited or simply knocked off her game by McCain’s boys.  I recommend you read the article, especially if you are feeling any weakness at all around the knees.

But, if it helps at all, think about this (pre-Couric interview) picture too, one which — in isolation, and wrapped around the “poor Sarah” theme — gives the impression she’s hurting, or feeling bad, or has been gouged by insensitive political animals like you and me. 

(click for full size)

Realize, instead, how the presumptuous Sarah was just taking a break from the teleprompter for an instant, and that, otherwise, her appearance in Golden, Colorado two weeks ago (as evidenced by the broader context of these three other images) was mostly a Mad Ave.-style agglomeration of sex appeal, maternal idealization, gender exploitation, ideological harangue and firing range adrenaline surge from someone who today is now fully leveraging her own incompetence (via a media-as-perpetrator abuse fantasy) to get into our heads.

(image 1, 3 & 4: Rick Wilking/Reuters.  Golden, Colorado September 15, 2008. image 2: Ed Andrieski/AP)