Palin’s Bailin’

Well dang. Here I just spent a good solid ten hours on this, only to wake up this morning (I was both sick and traveling yesterday) to the news that Governor Palin’s days as the governor of Alaska are numbered, and in double digits, at that. Speculation is rife about the reasons why.

This is nothing new. Though Governor Palin has been in the public eye for months now, she has managed, against all odds, to maintain her air of mystery. The day after she was unveiled as John McCain’s pick for VP, I read about librarians and possible firings, and police chiefs and definite firings and then librarian rehirings and it all seemed very murky and mysterious. And then I read about her habit of appointing buddies to public positions, and how sometimes it seemed like being a buddy was more important than actual, well, skill, and she still seemed murky and mysterious. Then I read about how she had, while leaking amniotic fluid, climbed onto a plane with what she knew to be a Down syndrome baby, flew for house, changed planes, flew some more, then drove not to the Anchorage Hospital but on to a small local hospital to deliver her baby. I thought back on my own experience in labor and, for what turned out to be the first of several times, thought, “What was the woman thinking?”

And then of course there was the question of just who actually gave birth to Trig Palin–a question that persisted largely because, like a great many other questions regarding the Palins, there was a lot of indignation, but not much in the way of objective evidence forthcoming. When moral outrage collides with a large dose of “that’s just plain nuts”–well, you get the idea.

The fact is, for somebody who’s long on moral outrage, Sarah Palin proved over time to be remarkably flexible in defining “the truth.” If listening to her respond to the Branchflower Report by saying she was so happy  it had proven that there had been no wrongdoing on her part was an education, hearing her over-the-top, seemingly willful distortions of Letterman’s jokes was graduate school.

And the bloggers…well, but then I AM one, and as luck would have it, I’m writing this blog in my pajamas. It’s Fourth of July, and the fireworks in our neighborhood have died down, and even those the city sets off across town in the park are only showing up sporadically now. Pajamas are the proper attire. Though my blog started during the election as a way of tracking politics in my own small town, the governor has made frequent appearances–largely because she has declared herself the champion of people like me. I have often been critical because that declaration is no more true than her description of the Branchflower Report findings. Over time, I have come to believe that she represents the interests of a constituency of one, and I find her claim to be the spokesperson for people like me presumptuous, overweening, and vainglorious.When I listened to her proclamations I found myself saying not, “Yes!”, but, “But…” in the beginning.

Time has passed, and the impulse to protest has faded, not because I have come to agree with her, but because I have pretty much stopped listening. The reality of the times has consumed my life. The fulminations of talking heads has less meaning than the ebb and flow of projects across my desk. The reality of the anti-depressants and what I must do to address the pain that has made them necessary makes the issue of photochopping a talk show host’s head onto a baby’s body seem pretty minor. I listened to the fulminations and realized at last that I simply no longer have time for all the needless drama generated by what is, in the end, a political cartoon. And I really, really didn’t have time to waste on a woman who described the creation of such a piece as “desecration” of an “iconic” image. Sarah Palin, her purported victimhood, and her faux moral outrage no longer have the power to stir me to either support or response. She has become irrelevant.

All that remained was closure. I found as I often do–creatively. Sometimes it’s a story or poem. This time it was a picture. “You want to present yourself as a holy figure?” I thought way back a couple weeks ago. “Fine–let’s talk holy figures–you and your pals who have set yourselves up as the standard by which all the rest of us should be judged.”

I knew this must be divinely ordained, because I found some lovely creches online (and my apologies in advance to the unknown artist who created the one that served as the basis for this piece). I also found high-resolution photos for just about everybody; I took that as a definite opening of a door through which (insert the divinity of your choice) clearly wished me to barge. There was no paucity of contenders for the various roles; if anything, my dilemma was whom to choose.

And then I photoshopped, modified, tweaked, combined, painted, and filtered. I even got the Naughty Monkeys in there (something that I am convinced will become an Iconic Representation of Republican Christmases based on this piece alone).

I worked on this. I really did. Even though I was holed up a hotel to which it turned out I was severely allergic, I worked on this, eyes streaming, sinuses aching, head spinning. I finished it this morning. I looked at it, forced everyone in the house to also look at it, and then, at long last, I was ready to put it up for sale on my website. And then I opened my internet browser in preparation for the Big Launch and read, “Sarah Palin to Step Down.”

Well.

I looked at my picture, my beautiful, probably microbe-infested picture. I looked at the news. I read that, true to form, Governor Palin had failed to provide a clear, rational explanation for her decision. But I knew.

She had done it to spite me. I worked and worked–and now, the very day I am ready to launch, she yanks the rug right out from under my size ten wide Payless Shoe Source slippers. It’s just not right. I’ve been pre-empted, made obsolete on the very eve of what I am convinced would have been the financial turning point for me. In retrospect, I can see that, without doubt, my future would have been secure–nay, affluent!–on the sales of this piece alone. And now, premature obsolescence. The central character in the Holy Republican Family has just served papers on the remainder–at least for the moment.

So what do I do now? Well, for the moment, this. I post it on my blog. And then I just sit tight. I have a feeling that this isn’t really a divorce, but only a trial separation–possibly only a quick weekend at Mother’s before she’s back, and all is forgiven. I wouldn’t say I’m exactly hoping for that. That would be just plain mean. Besides, the thought of soon-to-be-ex-Governor Palin anywhere near a political office gives me a cauld grue. But I worked damned hard on this picture. It’s too beautiful to just pass gently into that good night. It’s the age-old dilemma–art for art’s sake, or art for the sake of money. For the moment, the question has been answered for me–for right now, this picture will have to be art for art’s sake, a snapshot of a moment in time when the Republican Party as they saw themselves and the Republican Party as the rest of us saw them were so very removed from each other as to provoke not outrage, not fear, not even pity, but laughter.

But that won’t last forever–I have a feeling the GOP will be back, either chastened and purged, or hoping to convince us they are. And when that day comes, this baby’ll go up for sale before the last “also” has been spoken.

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