Dear Governor Palin

Dear Sarah,

It’s a hot, hot, sunny morning in L.A., and I just finished a long walk in the park with my dog. She’s no special breed, just a mutt, but I love her, and I’d say most who meet her think she’s pretty cute. Dogs really bring out the best in people, don’t you think? — it’s amazing how many folks I’ve become friendly with as a result of our morning walks around the block. Makes me feel like a member of a bigger community. Connected. Even unified. It’s a nice thing. I’m sure you’d know all about it. Anyway, watching her little tail wag as she wended her way through the park in happy oblivion got me thinking of, well…you. Pitbull Palin. Actually, I’m afraid that, since hearing your acceptance speech at the Convention on Wednesday night, I’ve been able to think of little else.

I’m not generally of the paranoid type, Mrs. Palin, but, I have to say, listening to you really gave me the creeps. As in, hair on the back of the neck and everything. You terrify me the way Hitler must have terrified decent, moderate Germans, the way Freddy Kreuger terrified Nancy, the way the storm drain at the bottom of my street terrifies my dog. I’d call it irrational, blind fear, as it is in the latter case, but where you are concerned I fear it is all too rational. You, my friend, have frightened me in a way that your running mate never could, and in a fashion that no one else in your party of mean-spirited, fear-mongering, shit-talking cohorts has.

Sorry about that last sentence. I try hard not to be vitriolic. But sometimes it’s so hard. Vitriol is so much easier than informed discourse, isn’t it? And so much more entertaining! And frankly, after listening to you incite a rabid, redneck, slack-jawed crowd to spectacular levels of, well, rabidness, red-neckedness, and slack-jawedness, after hearing your castrating, withering remarks about my candidate and your insouciant, utterly ill-informed and unscientific attitudes towards issues I hold dear and true, I can only conclude that, for better or for worse, vitriol is the only coin left in this realm with any spending power. We are in a recession, after all. Or haven’t you heard? Anyway, I guess we’d all better hold our noses and fill our pockets. Because you know what? Trying to be nice, trying to rise above, trying to live a decent, compassionate, constructive life because it seems like the right thing to do has gotten us nowhere. Whereas you, an actual Christian with a supposed mandate to do the above, have apparently left far behind you such strictures as “turn the other cheek,” “judge not, lest ye be judged,” and “let he among you who has not sinned, throw the first stone.” Instead, you and those like you worship at a shrine of mindless pugnacity, fervent judgementalism, and a delight in stone hurling of epic proportions.

Perhaps this last part explains your buff arms. I certainly can’t imagine, otherwise, how you have the time to maintain that girlish figure and steamed-milk complexion. After all, you’re a busy woman. Busy corralling your knocked-up daughter into marrying her drug dealer BF (nice clean-up job on him, by the way. Hope it lasts), busy covering up the abuse-of-power charges leveled against you in your home state, or at least burying them until after the election, busy waving your special needs infant child in the air like the Confederate flag, while obscuring the fact that you hid your pregnancy with him until you were seven months gone…

By the way, not to pry, but could this have been because you were contemplating, um, a termination? I’m racking my brain to think of why else you might have delayed such an important announcement, but I’m drawing a blank. Come on, you can tell me. Were you planning a trip to the Planned Parenthood in Anchorage? Or had you already shut that down?

Anyway. Wow. I guess I’m being a little mean. I’m sorry. Once you start down the road of nastiness it sure is hard to hit the brakes, right? You know all about that. Nice job on the whole “Community Organizer” thing, by the way. Gonna start kicking kittens next? No, but really, don’t worry about it. It was a vicious, unthinking, and stunningly ill-conceived attack, but IT WORKED!! That’s all that matters! The crowd loved it! Never mind that at least some of them had to have BEEN community organizers. Geez. What does it feel like to know that the voters holding you in such high esteem are stupider than cows on smack?

Aaaah, never mind. So what if they’re all a few tacos short of a combination plate. It’s all about quantity, not quality, right? There’s so damn many of them! After all, they eschew birth control just like you do, and since they don’t mind about silly little things like global overpopulation five kids is just what happens while you’re busy watching “American Idol.” And while they are dumb, they’re awfully cute. There was that one guy wearing the “Drill-Baby-Drill” tee-shirt, the one that had the picture of the caribou grazing next to the oil rigs? That was really adorable. It reminded me of that version of “Christina’s World” where she’s lying on the grass looking at the nuclear power plant… I’m not sure he, or anyone else there, would’ve gotten the allusion, though. It’s amazing to see an entire room, filled with thousands upon thousands of people, all of whom have apparently made it to adulthood whilst maintaining a total unawareness of the word “irony.” Except perhaps from that Allanis Morrisette song. But she’s a fucking leftie. And she’s Canadian. U.S.A.!! U.S.A.!!

Speaking of which, I just had one other thing I wanted to say. You mentioned in your speech that we were winning the war in Iraq. And I wondered if, when you write back, you could explain to me what “winning” means in this context. You’re a soccer mom, after all, so I know rules come easily to you. Because for me, you see, who doesn’t even own a minivan, I’ve always been a bit confused by how one can “win” a “war” that a) has never been officially declared, b) has caused human casualties in the six figures, c) is seemingly endless, and d) has brought our country to the point of financial ruin. (I know, the Alaskans had a really great year last year, but they seem to be the only ones. It might be nice, in fact, if you sent some of those moose you’ve been slaughtering down to the soup kitchens here in L.A. — they’re pretty hard up).

And, um, not to sound shrill, or like an angry leftie, or anything, but, um, haven’t we sort of ascertained at this point that our, um, “trip” into Iraq was sort of indefensible and unwarranted? I mean, we’re all in agreement at this point that Bush is a lying sack of shit, right? That’s why you all treated him like a leper with the runs this week at your Convention, right? Or was it really just a scheduling issue? Anyway, I think we all agree upon the basic premise that, war never having been declared upon us, and all the “evidence” supplied by the Bush administration in support of said “war” having been utterly fabricated, that we simply. Invaded. Iraq. Utterly unprovoked. Right? We’re all honest people, we’re all out of kindergarten…can we just say this, once, all together? You’re all so good at chanting — come on! Good. Now, this being the case, Sarah, how, exactly, can we then say we are “winning?” Can you win an illegal invasion? Isn’t that a little bit like setting a house on fire and then bragging about putting it out? I’m just trying to understand the way you guys think. Nothing? Maybe you should get back to me.

In the meantime, I should be getting my little dog home. She’s asleep, though, under my cafe table, dreaming, I imagine, of playmates, and balls, and swimming pools. Hate to disturb her. She seems peaceful. Must not be any bad dogs where she is. Lucky for her. As for me, I’m not so lucky. I know a bad dog when I see one, and Mrs. Palin, you are a bad dog. I feel sorry for you; I don’t blame you; I hate the people who made you this way. But you scare me nonetheless. Your very existence has darkened my Southern California sky.

In closing, I would just ask you to ask yourself one thing: was your speech what Jesus meant when he said “Love Thy Neighbor?” Cause if so, I don’t think you’re listening.

And if not, you may just want to ask yourself whose bitch, exactly, you’ve become

Very warmly, (what with climate change and everything)

me