Four years ago, Sarah Palin burst onto the national stage wearing rimless Kazuo Kawasaki glasses, and the designer-eyewear industry was never the same. The specs have become an iconic part of Palin’s look, largely thanks to the sheer consistency with which she wears them; just as John Stossel will always have a bushy mustache and Mr. Peanut will always wear a top hat, Sarah Palin will always wear rimless glasses.
But that changed last night — possibly temporarily, possibly forever — when Palin appeared on Hannity sporting a very thick-rimmed, wood-patterned pair of frames. It was jarring, frankly, and we can only assume that Sean Hannity managed to stay focused on the interview through the sheer force of his bottomless journalistic fortitude.
Maybe Palin was simply tired of her trademark eyewear. That happens. But maybe she’s going through some sort of midlife crisis, in which a new pair of hip glasses is tantamount to ditching the minivan for a flashy convertible, and the next thing you know she’s leaving politics altogether and opening up a bait shop in some out-of-the-way Alaskan fishing village, just like she’s always daydreamed about doing, and we never see or hear from her again.
