Palin Again

The aforementioned covers of Time magazine in the past couple of weeks have raised eyebrows left and right, literally, but this week they've again succumbed to my presumed journalistic pre-glorification. Sarah Palin's profile fills the front cover, posing as some sort of art-house modelle. Somewhat surprising that this picture wasn't used, whether real or not, ask yourself why? Naturally, her orthodox Christianity worries me, and she has a lot to answer to on her flip-flopping on the "Bridging issue". However, Hitchens has dug up an interesting snippet from a questionnaire she answered before her 2006 election as governor of Alaska (which people describe as being typically Canadian, yet having all the signature nuances of globalized America - shopping channels, Burger King, etc.). She was asked to comment on the phrase 'Under God' used during the Pledge of Allegiance. She responded: "Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers [it's] good enough for me, and I'll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance." Obviously, this only compounds my religious fears, and it's interesting to note that she clearly doesn't know her history; the 'under God' section of the pledge was only inserted during the 50s, much to the annoyance of the constitutional purists. Palin has become a parody of bad soap opera, influencing enough of the fickle, female, Clinton supporters to seemingly switch their political allegiance and vote Republican for one reason only - an all-American Goddess. Nancy Gibbs sums this all up better than I ever could in her essay for Time: "It's hard to watch an accomplished woman walk the tightrope under lights this bright and with stakes this high; we don't want it to look too easy, but we don't want to see her fall."