North Star Writers Group - Syndicated Commentary: Opinion, Humor and Features

September 15, 2008

Obama Didn’t Say It, But I Will: Sarah Palin is a Pig

Sarah Palin is a pig.

Barack Obama did not say this. Nor did he express it, imply it, infer it, insinuate it or otherwise equate John McCain’s pick for a running mate with a member of the porcine species. He didn’t even think it, slanderous assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.

I am saying it: Sarah Palin is a pig. I say it in the full knowledge that Palin’s various advocates, within the McCain camp and without it, would – if they noticed or cared – respond that this is the most sexist of possible assertions, beyond the pale, outside the realms of decent discourse, a foul and detestable slur upon a fine public servant.

Sarah Palin is a pig. P-I-G. And whatever some might assert to the contrary, such a statement has nothing whatsoever to do with her gender, her appearance or her hygiene habits.

Sarah Palin’s piggyness isn’t about surface matters. It is a characteristic that exudes from deep inside – from a space beyond gender, from the small essential “it” that determines the nature and character of a human being, however loosely we may be forced to define this latter term for present purposes.

In her acceptance speech, Palin offered a self-analytical simile of her own, declaring the difference between a pit bull and the hockey mom she considers herself to be to consist simply of lipstick. Mildly amusing as this might be, it is far too self-aggrandizing. The characteristics associated with dogs – loyalty, most especially – have little place in describing the opportunistic and deceitful Alaskan malingerer who occupies the number two slot on the Republicans’ national ticket.

No, “pig” fits the bill far better. Voraciousness, avarice, low cunning, self-aggrandizement, the abdication of any allegiance to principle, the unquenchable hunger for power are all attributes associated, probably unjustly, with pigs in the popular mind. No animal is capable of the base degeneracy humankind can muster at its worst, but some people prove themselves capable of stooping to such a level with remarkable consistency. Sarah Palin is one of these.

When not using the apparatus of state to stage personal vendettas on behalf of herself and her husband – i.e., the firing of Walter Monegan; the forced resignations of miscellaneous Wasilla civil servants – Palin employs it to feather her own nest. Even in an environment as beset with shamelessness as is the American political landscape, it is hard to find another official audacious enough to bill the state government for meals eaten in their own kitchen, nights spent sleeping in their own bed or trips taken by their children for non-official reasons. Palin was audacious enough, however. Just as she was audacious enough as mayor to bill Wasilla sexual assault victims for the “rape kits” used to gather evidence in their cases – the only Alaska municipality to do so. P-I-G.

Pigness is not the sole province of Palin, of course. Birds of a feather flock together, and Palin’s presence on the national political stage comes courtesy of John McCain, a pig of even greater proportions. That John McCain has shown the facility to lie at virtually all times on virtually all subjects should, in a sane world, be sufficient to disqualify him from any consideration for national office, let alone the presidency. That he has surrounded himself with a bevy of the Capitol’s most powerful, ill-connected lobbyists – as his campaign advisors speak to a diseased, selfish individual willing to prostitute whatever shred of human decency remaining in his corroded soul in exchange for political power. That he has chosen to foist a clueless and corrupt Alaskan mini-Cheney upon the American public as his running mate in exchange for a few political points is indicative of his willingness to sell out his country, his party and his people in that same narcissistic pursuit.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm concludes with the pigs gathering to celebrate in the farmhouse with champagne and cigars, even as they sell off their fellow barnyard animals to the slaughterhouse in order to support their corrupt and diseased lifestyles. Pleased with their own cleverness, drunk on their own power, addicted to the trappings of life at the top of the food chain, Orwell’s pigs have traded the vestigial remains of their souls for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver, selling out those they had pledged to lead, steward and protect.

In the real life variant, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove and virtually the entire leadership of the Republican Party are popping the corks and lighting the stogies as whatever remaining traces of nobility and integrity left in the American political process are herded inexorably towards the knacker yard.

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