election hangover

Sarah Palin Is Back in the Kitchen, But It’s Still Not Quite Enough for Tina Brown

Fox News’ Greta van Susteren managed to get Alaska governor Sarah Palin into her own kitchen for part two of her interview. Palin even cooks for her (something that appears to involve ice cream, whipped cream, cheese, and reindeer sausage)! Palin even offers up some solidarity for fellow working-mom Hillary Clinton, saying that she’s “going to call her tomorrow.” “I’m gonna tell her, ‘More power to ya!’” she told Van Susteren. But another working mother thinks that all of this isn’t quite enough. “So far the interviews with Sarah Palin in her TV media blitz have failed to answer the only question I’m interested in,” writes Tina Brown in the Daily Beast. “Now that it’s all over, Sarah, who does look after the kids?”

I could never see a shot of the dynamite-looking Palin sashaying out to greet the crowd in those borrowed gladrags without thinking of what it must be like backstage. If it was anything like the early childrearing scene in my own house, the baby was throwing up, Piper was bleating about her missing coloring book, Bristol was sitting sullenly with her iPod giving every one filthy looks, and Todd Palin didn’t notice any of it because he was on the phone.


Brown doesn’t think Palin is an uncaring mother, she just thinks that Palin hasn’t admitted how hard the campaign must have been on her family, and how hard the guilt must have been on her not always being able to be there for them. “She could play a valuable leadership role — right now — by being honest about and sharing what she really does know about: combining healthy ambition with mothering five kids.”

But we know Sarah Palin better. She’s a woman whose actions speak louder than words — and when a mom starts combining sausage, ice cream, and cheese into one meal, she’s telegraphing her guilt.

What Sarah Palin Didn’t Say [Daily Beast]
Sarah Palin Interview [Fox News]

Sarah Palin Is Back in the Kitchen, But It’s Still Not Quite Enough for Tina Brown