Sick and Tired of Sarah Palin

By Julia Piscitelli, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Since when did responsible journalism become targeting someone? It apparently is in Sarah's world. The Associated Press put fact checkers on her book to answer numerous complaints from former McCain presidential campaign aides that the book is a work of "fiction." And it was nice of her to suggest that they should put reporters on more important stories, well, they do have more than 11 people on staff, and those other thousands and thousands are certainly handling the rest of the reporting.

Waa, waa, waa. Poor Sarah Palin.

I am sick and tired of hearing Republicans crying about how unfairly Sarah Palin is treated by the press. I'm sick and tired of hearing how she was disrespected by the picture of her in shorts on the cover of Newsweek. Frankly, I'm just sick of Sarah Palin. And that's saying a lot coming from me, someone who has been fighting for the advancement of women in politics for years. Although I disagree with her political beliefs, I respected and admired her accomplishments as an elected official, and as the vice presidential nominee for a major party.

But I lost a great deal of that respect for her on July 26, 2009. That's the day she quit her job as governor of Alaska to make millions selling books.

She didn't leave for health reasons, family crisis or due to any scandal. She seems quite healthy, in fact, evidenced by her August 2009 Runners World profile. Here's my beef, she quit her job 18 months before her term ended so she could make $7 million for her book. Sarah's no dummy, she's smart and wily. She must have known that if she waited until her term ended in 2010, she would have become yesterday's news, had less time to be coy about possibly running for president in 2012, and wouldn't have made nearly as much on the book deal. My question is how much of that money is going back to the citizens of Alaska? They deserve a little of that for her betrayal of the Alaska citizens who voted for her. The 114,697 people who cast votes for her in the 2006 gubernatorial election wanted her to be their governor for four years, not two and a half.

When she took the oath of office, she was making a commitment to the state, and she should have honored it. If she was leaving the position of governor to take another public service position, that would be understandable. George W. Bush vacated his position of governor when he was elected President, Barack Obama vacated his senate seat when he was elected President, and Rahm Emanuel vacated his position in Congress to become the White House Chief of Staff. All moves to new positions of public service. A 20-city book tour and an appearance on Oprah hardly qualify as public service.

This week's Newsweek magazine cover uses a photo of Palin from Runner's World magazine where she's wearing running gear, specifically, shorts. Shorts similar to the ones she wore in footage from Alaska during the Oprah interview. Palin and countless Republican pundits have called the cover sexist. It is not sexist. The day she bailed out of her job as governor to become an author, she became a private citizen with newfound celebrity. She may not like being treated like Jon and Kate or Brad and Angie, but if she wanted to be treated like an elected official, she should have stayed one. She should have fulfilled her duty to the people of Alaska before cashing in.

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