According to news reports about Sarah Palin’s new book, "Going Rogue", the former governor is naming names and settling scores for how she was controlled during John McCain’s presidential campaign.  It seems that she didn’t like being given a script for being the vice-presidential candidate, believing that her own beliefs and views were strong enough and worthy enough to be expressed to the general public.  All the ways she looked stupid or made no sense, she seems to be claiming, came from her inability to stick to the program set by Svengali-like aides. 

Now, as a private citizen, and “going rogue,” she argues that she has her own independent views that don’t always line up with the Republican Party’s platform.  In fact, she is more accepted now by the Far Right, social conservatives or conservatives in general than those in the mainstream Republican Party.  She has distanced herself from the party that couldn’t beat Obama—some say for the motive of running for president in 2012. 

Or, she might have a more practical agenda, establishing herself as a public figure for monetary gain and ego rewards.  What is happening with the national conversation when it comes to Palin and her book is that there are rumors of everyday people, particularly disenfranchised Republican women seeing Palin as a hero or role model.  They like that she rejects attempts to control her and speaks her mind—in fact, it really doesn’t matter much what she speaks her mind about or how accurate her statements are, but the style she is presenting.

She speaks for the rural, white, small-town, poor, working class gals and guys who don’t always speak that well but have good hearts.  She represents everyman, and even if McCain’s aides and the Republican Party itself don’t respect her, she is likable and attractive, and a little bit rebellious. 

She turns on people just a little bit, to garner the attention of a porn movie called Nailin’ Palin, and appears to be a little bit naughty enough to stand up for herself, but she isn’t too good to take home to your parents.  She is, in fact, the perfect Republican spokesmodel, as McCain’s campaign attempted to use her for, only she doesn’t believe she is just that. 

And that is the national joke on Palin, a joke that should make people cringe and recognize the intrinsic sexism that is attached to Palin-mania—we’re in on the joke, that Palin needs a script, needs a ghostwriter, needs to be packaged to garner any bit of respect.  We doubt that left to her own devices, left to speak for herself, Palin uncensored, she would be any less laughable. 

The fact is, when Tina Fey pretended to be Palin on SNL, we laughed at Palin pretending to be a candidate, pretending to compete intellectually with the big boys, pretended to be as serious as Hilary Clinton.  It made us uncomfortable, people giving Palin any impression that she could ever be President.  It was the opposite of any self-esteem building exercise, it was a humiliating joke taken too far, and now we have in the national conversation the end result—a mediocre, but attractive, woman not realizing she’s the pig with the lipstick everyone is laughing at.

Palin, with her media blitz, isn’t just trying to make money or maybe become President; she’s trying to prove herself to the world.  It isn’t even some ego trip, but a desperate ploy for people to see her as being good enough.  She’s trying to regain the family name, after it is dragged through the mud by people with their own agendas.  Right now, Palin isn’t the only Republican spokemodel; we have Carrie Prejean in exactly the same boat because of the same reasons. 

Both women are humiliated and laughed at because of being used by conservative groups, without any self-realization that they aren’t being taken seriously.  They are both like the cheerleader being used by the football player, who sleeps with her because she is a good lay (or at least makes him look like a good lay), even though behind her back he and everyone else makes fun of her for being so stupid.  They both become, basically, Jessica Simpson, with a political agenda. 

The sad part of all of this is what this does for little girls, girls who might hope to be President some day.  What does it do to have them see supposed role models be treated with such disrespect…how can we tell these girls it isn’t okay to be used, when we don’t all have some part in using women. 

Whatever your political point of view, the fact is, we all have some responsibility in making Palin’s book happen…we took part in the national joke that leads to the national conversation now about Palin and her worthiness to be taken seriously at all.