The Definitive Sarah Palin Essay

Or: Damn, Her Bristols Are Huge!

Now that she is a grandmother, let us look back at Sarah Palin's turn as Vice Presidential nominee.  On Friday, 29 August, at noon (ish) Senator John McCain announced his Presidential running mate; a person of whom no one (even those who follow politics) had heard. And then she was allowed to speak.  And we learned about her personal life, family and her views on national policy.  We then knew all we could know about her; she was clearly ripe for parody.  Not just for her resemblance to Tina Fey (it was my reaction, too, but really she more closely resembles Megan Mullally, specifically her character Karen Walker) but the fact that she is a walking, talking caricature. 

This fact I can imagine made turning her into a character exceedingly difficult (but I can also imagine that it was very easy).  She managed to lay bare the substancelessness of neo-conservative (Republican) "values" through her Faux-Legalese of the Un-Educated (also to).  She had a knocked-up daughter, her husband (and indeed, herself) were/are involved with a Party of traitors (the Alaskan Independence Party) while all but accusing her opponent of being a very traitor.  And, being the depraved depth—the definition—of Disaster Capitalism, we discovered the practice of charging rape victims for their rape exams.  

Seth Meyers, Tina Fey and the Saturday Night Live writers crafted a character who was basically a heightened reality version of Governor Palin. In the case of her interview with Katie Couric, she was quoted verbatim where there could be no other joke than her grammatical incoherance.  

On YouTube was a glut of un- and semi-professional Sarah Palin impersonators and the best (only good) one had to be Sara Benincasa's (/sarabeninca and later /twentythreesix) where Sarah Palin, the character took some joyfully bizarre turns while remaining unmistakeably Sarah Palin. Joining her was her assistant "Dina" (Diana Saez).
The turning point came when Sarah Palin (the Tina Fey character) crossed paths with Sarah Palin the person ("the real one").  
Anyone familiar with burlesque knows it functions nearly exclusively on caricature turning baseness into intellectualism and classiness (somehow).  I believe those of us who attended Super Happy Funtime Burlesque's Hallowe'en Show (the same night as Sarah Palin's appearance on SNL) saw the "real" Sarah Palin.  A full display of spectacular mock patriotism that got skimpier and skimpier finishing with a sprint around the auditorium with the American Flag everywhere, her glasses on the entire time.  Evidence:

http://flickr.com/photos/powerbooktrance/2980412863/in/set-72157604879146137/