To Die For

When the news, and I use the word "news" in its loosest possible sense, broke that Sarah Palin was going to join Fox News, a number of my close personal friends and confidants sent me e-mail on a very similar thread: "Didn't I tell you?" or "What took her so long?" I could only shake my head and agree. It was as inevitable as the coming of winter, or the late-season collapse of the Denver Broncos. What did take her so long to join the media elite?
Six months ago, when Miss Maverick resigned her post as governor of Alaska, she said, " I'm not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual." Politics as usual would seem to mean not finishing your term, then taking a while to get your book ghost written, and mulling over all the ways she could use her powers for good. She chose the darkest of the dark side.
It makes you wonder just how much anyone, especially the powers that be in the McCain campaign, knew about Sarah when she burst onto the scene two years ago. Or the voters of Alaska who elected her two years before that. Or the voters of Wasilla three years before that. You can't fool all of the people all of the time, but her somewhat meteoric rise over the past ten years sure gives one pause. Hockey mom to Fox News contributor in a decade. Nice trajectory. To be fair, it takes her back to her broadcast roots. She majored in journalism with an emphasis on broadcasting at the University of Idaho and worked part time as a weekend sportscaster in 1988 for an Anchorage TV station. Now she'll be hob-nobbing with Bill O'Reilly and friends.
And we wait. Wait for the inevitable return to politics as usual. Whatever that is.