A last word on this Palin thing

If someone asks me if I watched the Sarah Palin interview on Oprah I'll simply note that I'm ignoring the erstwhile Alaskan governor in the hope that others will follow suit and she'll drift back out of the public consciousness.

That I consider leading by example.

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I concede I don't know Mrs. Palin personally, and only can claim to have any familiarity with the public persona that was cultivated during the campaign and over the intervening year in the mentions of her in various media. Were she merely someone I met at a cocktail party she might seem perfectly pleasant. I could comment on the brief business trip I took to Anchorage ten years ago, and how I thought her home state to be quite picturesque; she could relate how she was an avid hunter or something. "Really?" I'd reply. "Shooting them from a helicopter? Well, that must be quite the thrill," I'd remark out of politeness, and I'd probably find some excuse to mingle elsewhere. Likely I wouldn't come away with the impression that she was the proverbial sharpest tack in the box but that she did have a certain charisma. Ultimately, I'd be left ambivalent.

The problem is that from the national spotlight I did learn a bit more about her than the party small talk would reveal, and it only reinforced what the impression from the party would have been. Namely: Not someone who I'd want to spent the better part of an hour in the afternoon see be interviewed by Oprah Winfrey.

Ultimately, my disinterest is more of a referendum on the way that most news organizations continue to dwell on her; while she and (I presume) her team of publicists work to keep her on their radar, one cannot begrudge them for doing their job; it's the media outlets who lazily comply who need to get a message. That being: If you feature her, I will not watch; if you mention her book I will change the channel (unless it's The Daily Show poking fun); if you discuss her as a legitimate presidential candidate in 2012 I will consider you to have abandoned even the pretense of performing journalism. And I'll vaguely aspire for that supposed Mayan-predicted apocalypse to come true, just so you will have something else to report.

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And really, it's McCain who deserves the most ire, for allowing himself to be convinced to select such an imprudent running mate and starting this whole debaucle.

It's his fault that now when people hear "Palin" they associate it more with Sarah rather than Monty Python alum and travel enthusiest Michael Palin.

That's what bothers me the most, I think.

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And yeah, I realize that by mentioning this I'm not really doing a swell job of ignoring her. That starts... now.