Palin’s Disneyland nightmare

By Aaron Light
Staff Writer

I have an idea of a screenplay I would love to market to the Disney corporation. It’s about a young, charismatic, reasonably attractive, God-fearing, gun-toting, all-American hockey mom who rises through the male-dominated field of politics in her local community to become mayor of her hometown.

She then becomes governor of her state and, finally, vice-president of her country, battling attacks left and right from bad guys (in my screenplay they are represented by liberals, homosexuals and pro-choicers) wherever she turns.

It ends with her triumphing once and for all as ruler of her land when the president dies (of old age, of course: This is a Disney movie). Neo-con fun for the whole family! The only problem with this story is that it’s on the verge of being reality, and if it does take place it will be one of the worst things to ever happen to America.

I am of course talking about Sarah Palin, the conservatives’ new sweetheart who has been on a meteoric rise to fame ever since her out-of-nowhere nomination as McCain’s vice-president.

This is obviously a ploy on McCain’s part to capitalize on both the women voters who are bummed that Hillary Clinton did not get the Democratic presidential nomination and the Evangelical far-righters who are still a little iffy on McCain’s politics.

While I applaud what has turned out to be a genius political move on McCain’s part, I still can’t believe that anyone in his—or her—right mind actually believes that Palin should be vice-president, based on her inexperience, outdated views and the fact that she could actually become president if McCain is elected.

Palin’s first major political position was as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a city with only 5,469 residents according to the 2000 U.S. census. Most recently, Palin served as governor of Alaska, which is almost trivial considering the whole state has a smaller population than San Francisco. Did I mention she has held the position for less than two years?

This jump from state governor to vice-president would leave her with no foreign policy experience whatsoever. No matter how one looks at the situation, there is no way Palin is ready for the undertaking as the second-in-command of one of the largest nations in the world.

Palin’s views are reflective of the Republican party as a whole. She supports raping the earth in the name of oil and goes so far as to refuse to put polar bears on the endangered species list because it would hinder Alaskan oil-drilling.

Even though her 17-year old daughter is pregnant, she believes in abstinence-only sex education in schools. Palin is also pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and a creationist.

These ideals do nothing but harm to the country. Look what eight years of George W. Bush has done for us — a $9 trillion national debt, an unjust war without an end in sight, wiretapping scandals and the highest teenage birthrate in the developed world, just to name a few things. By electing someone with the same views as the disastrous regime that came before her, we would be do nothing to fix any of these problems.

Things could only get worse.

The scariest aspect of them all, however, is McCain’s age. At 72, McCain would be the oldest president ever elected. McCain was already treated for skin cancer melanoma in 2000, and with a national average life expectancy of 78, there is a good chance he could die in office, leaving Palin as president of the USA.

If this were to happen, there is no telling what she would do. I would hate for America’s first female president to be someone as destructive and inexperienced as Palin.

So, please, do what you can this November. Vote Obama and give the planet at least another four years of happy existence before the inevitable wars and death and destruction come, the cockroaches evolve and form new civilizations in the nuclear radiation–rampant, ozone layer-deprived Ice Age that will follow.

Vote Obama and stop this bad Disney fable from coming true.