The PALINdrome Syndrome

palindrome: noun - a word or phrase that reads the same backward as forward

Much ado about nothing: Sarah Palin. The 'much ado' part is what's distressing because this feels like a pod blasted into the atmosphere, tumbled to earth, then exploded and brought forth an alien invader in the form of Sarah Palin. Here is where the movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, conjures a sort of déjà vu except that Communism is replaced by right wing extremism. Here's a synposis of the movie:

"The theme of the cautionary, politicized film was open to varying interpretations, including paranoia toward the spread of a harmful ideology such as socialistic Communism, or the sweeping mass hysteria of McCarthyism (read: evangelical, right wing conservatism) in the 1950s (in 2008!) and blacklisting of Hollywood (read: blacklisting of anyone who has read a book), the spread of an unknown malignancy or virulent germ (read fear of annihilation by 'nuclear war'), or the numbing of our individuality and emotional psyches through conformity and group-think (read: FEAR). Yet its main theme was the alien (read 'Communist') dehumanization and take-over of an entire community by large seed pods (found in basements, automobile trunks, a greenhouse, and on a pool table)(found in communities in Alaska and red states that are, unfortunately, too numerous to mention) that replicated and replaced human beings (Mission Accomplished in red states...okay, not every single person). And it told of the heroic struggle of one helpless but determined man of conscience, a small-town doctor (McCarthy) (OBAMA), to vainly combat and quell the deadly, indestructible threat. "

Let's hope the election ends as well as the movie. Ok, back to "palindrome". Sarah Palin feels like someone who is both going forward and backward (the 1950's) at the same time. All of a sudden we are thrown back to the post war 50's...over 50YEARS ago... by some small time mayor from a small time town, now a governor of a state with a population less than the south side of Chicago, to a time when everything seemed, on the surface, so black and white. (No racial reference intended while, at the same time, it is quite apt.) Sarah Palin feels like a life threatening virus we have all suddenly contracted, and don't know exactly where we picked it up. Did we not wash our hands thoroughly enough while we were watching the Republican convention? Did we leave the room at exactly the wrong time and the virus jumped through the t.v.? Who knows, but this is a time for heavy antibiotics and the doctor says: don't stop taking them til November 5th.