I don’t get sucked into all train wrecks the media gets worked up over. I really don’t care about Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan’s latest antics. They don’t have a chance of affecting my daily life and, I don’t know about Lindsay, but with Britney I’ve gotten to the point of feeling more pity for her than anything else.
Anyway, I love certain TV shows for their train wreck value…7th Heaven was a prime example, and that silly show this summer Secret Life of the American Teenager.
This year’s news has been full of stories that I’ve loved for their train wreck value. Late last year, earlier this year, I was sucked into following the story of the Bonnie & Clyde couple here in Philadelphia.
And this spring I was endlessly interested in following the story of the Texas Mormon compound. I’ve always had an interest in cults and the brainwashing that happens within them. This was a prime example to me.
I think the most train wreck worthy case this year has easily been Sarah Palin. Being that she and John McCain ran such an ugly, negative campaign that incited so much anger and hate, I think she deserves every single attack that’s been coming at her. McCain does deserve some slack too, but Sarah incited more of this hate and never did anything to try discouraging McCain’s supporters from flinging anti-Muslim, racist attacks on Obama. Also, according to the Daily Telegraph in London,
Sarah Palin’s attacks on Barack Obama’s patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.
I truly appreciated that McCain tried calming down the hate speech at his rallies, but Sarah Palin did no such thing. And since the campaign ended on Tuesday, McCain has gone quietly into the night and was actually starting to seem like John McCain Version 2000, while Sarah Palin continued causing ruckus in the media.
As folks like Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann have addressed, all these stories coming out about Palin now are troubling for a number of reasons. Most importantly, if these McCain insiders were so concerned about Sarah not knowing Africa was a continent and all these other things, why didn’t they come out with this information before the election ended and, of course, why was Sarah Palin chosen in the first place. The idea of this woman being so close to the White House scared the crap out of so many people and would have been incredibly dangerous.
I have completely gone off track with this, I was originally going to just make fun of Sarah Palin, but everything I said above gives my reasons why I think any of these jokes are justified. I think humor helps ease direness of any situation. I think that’s why it was so great (and important) having Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert around during these Bush years. They made a painful time in our nation’s history a bit less painful.
So, I will continue watching and enjoying the train wreck that is Sarah Palin. I just hope she keeps feeding the media.
I’ll leave with some funny Sarah Palin videos I found on YouTube:
Pish Posh Etc. 