Why We Heart Sarah Palin

Before I officially became middle-aged I was "middle-aged", i.e., an invisible woman.  I started graying in my 20's and by my early 40's I had more gray hair than black.  Much of my adult life I've been "chunky", a euphemism for one fried chicken leg shy of fat.  And, I live in America.  (As it so happens I'm married to an immigrant who thinks the zenith of American Beauty are women like Venus and Serena Williams, and Queen Latifah.  His white brethren have been trying to set him straight ever since.)  Years ago if you were dating a white man how could you tell that his father approved of you?  He'd confess (after a drink or two) that he'd always had a crush on Eartha Kitt.  Now I suppose said father would admit that he always had a crush on Halle Berry.  I got it: mulatto women who were first runners up in the American Beauty pageant.  I know it was meant to be a compliment, but I'm a body double for Whoopi Goldberg so why would I care?  What does this have to do with ...?  (Mama Grizzly) Bear with me.

So, I'm talking to a friend a few weeks ago and she wonders out loud why the media pays so much attention to Sarah Palin.  And I sigh as if to say, "Haven't you figured this one out yet?"  It's not that her name won't guarantee page mega-hits if they write about her.  (Even though it will; I fall for it all the time and I've been tired of her since 2008.)  It's not that she was a prominent politician and therefore newsworthy.  (Without googling, name the last 4 VP candidates on the losing side.)  It is that journalists are still primarily men and they, like a lot of American men, want to bone Sarah Palin.  Many of them might have to put a brown paper bag over her politics, but they still want to bone her nevertheless.  It's "as long as I'm lookin' I might as well write somethin'" journalism.