Maureen & Sarah

Recently Maureen Dowd (whose writing I love) traveled to Alaska -- Sarah Palin country. She no doubt sought to obtain a first-hand unbiased account of the Governor's emergence from backwoods obscurity into the bright light of Washington elite scorn. Let us imagine Ms. Dowd interviewing Governor Palin on her home turf, perhaps in Wasilla’s Beehive Salon:

MD: “First of all, Governor, congratulations on your nomination . . .”

SP: “Oh, Ms. Dowd, forget the Governor thing. Please call me Sarah, and thank you.”

MD: “Very well . . . Sarah. Please continue to call me Ms. Dowd.”

SP (laughing): “You’re funny, Mo.”

MD (not laughing): “No one calls me Mo, except Frank Rich and the other liberal Pulitzer Prize winning definers of the standards by which candidates for high office should be measured. By the way, do you really get your hair done in this . . . place?”

SP: “Hell, yes, have for years. You’re getting a little shaggy, there, how ‘bout one of the gals
works you over when we’re done?”

MD (shaking): “Uh, no thanks, Governor, I mean Sarah; I prefer to leave here the same height
as I arrived.”

SP (again laughing): “Gosh, Ms. Dowd, you should use that humor of yours in your writing.”

MD: “A couple of questions, if I may, Sarah. First, do you know the date on which Alaska became a state?”

SP: “You betcha I do, doggone it. That would be January 3rd, 1959, Ms. Dowd. That means we Alaskans will be celebrating our 50th anniversary of statehood right before John McCain and I are inaugurated on January 20, 2009. That’ll be a helluva month, huh, Mo? You may want to drink heavily all through it, Honey. Oops, I better take this call. ‘Yeah, all right, I’ll be right there’. Gotta run, tend to Governor things, you know. Let’s finish this over dinner later – Chepo’s Fiesta, best Mexican in Alaska.”

MD: “Uh, sure, is there a dress code? Oh no, wait, Governor . . . Sarah . . . please don’t leave me here alone!”