One of the things that has always been most striking to me about Sarah Palin is her complete lack of self-awareness. She seems to be unaware, for example, that she is wealthy, or that she is not a highly-skilled journalist.
The sense that she has no grip on her own reality is only confirmed by the details that have leaked from
a former aide’s book
on the former half-term governor. Two weeks ago, Palin was
telling CBN’s David Brody
that if she’s elected president, she’ll “continue on the same course of not really caring what other people say about me or worrying about the things that they make up, but having that thick skin and a steel spine.”
But the Bailey book paints a portrait of a woman with precisely the opposite attitude toward criticism. Palin is portrayed as a woman who is wounded by every slight, ready to go to the mat over any rumor that has to do with her family, and determined to punish any entity that has criticized her. As early as 2006, she was writing e-mails like this one: “Todd just told me you had spoken with him awhile back and reported that some law enforcement friends of yours claimed some dumbass lie about Track not being Todd’s son? This really, really disgusts me and ticks me off,” Palin, according to Bailey, e-mailed aide Scott Heyworth in January of 2006. “I want to know right now who said it, who would ever lie about such a thing… this is the type of bullsh** lie about family that WILL keep me from running for Governor.”
And
Wonkette informs us
that Palin, who definitely does not really care what other people say about her, has created a secondary Facebook account under the name “Lou Sarah” (her midde name is Louise) for the sole purpose of applauding her official Facebook page.
Forget thick skin and steel spines; if Sarah Palin were to get elected and “continue on the same course,” we’d have a president typing revenge tweets from the Oval Office and siccing the Secret Service on
Andrew Sullivan
.
Photograph of Sarah Palin by Mario Tama/Getty Images.
