Why I Love to Hate Sarah Palin

O.K. I'm about to admit a deep, dark secret about myself: I'm obsessed with Sarah Palin. My husband rolls his eyes at me while I sit, night after night, in front of the TV furiously clicking the remote between The Election Center on CNN, Hardball and Countdown on MSNBC, even the idiots on Fox News, hoping for a glimpse of Sarah, gloating when she can not answer a question about The Bush Doctrine! I don't know what The Bush Doctrine is either, but if I were running for Vice President I sure as hell would make sure that I did!

As I channel surf I check to see what Sarah is wearing today? How can they take her seriously with that short skirt and loads of lip gloss accentuating her pouty lips? On the campaign trail today she has lost the up do and is wearing her hair loose around her shoulders with sexy side-swiped bangs. "Do you think she's hot?" I ask my husband who rolls his eyes again. In his interview with her (one of only two interviews her handlers have allowed her to do) it does look to me like Sean Hannity would just like to eat her up. He reminds me of the high school guy who is with the pretty, popular girl at the prom--the one all the other guys wanted to ask out but were too afraid of rejection --unsure if he will score tonight or not.

The truth of the matter is I'm kind of jealous and kind of angry. I want to hate her. Aside from the fact that I disagree with her on every issue possible from abortion to zoology, how dare she with her limited education and experience and complex family obligations presume that she is ready to step in for the leader of the free world if God forbid.....

I'm thinking to myself, if she can run for V.P. why can't I? I'm starting to feel like a slacker. 25 years ago I was on the fast track. I majored in politics and economics at an Ivy League University, got a high paying and highly coveted job in management consulting, went back to school a couple of years later and got a masters degree at another prestigious school. I was golden baby; no one was going to stop me from shattering the glass ceiling. But fairly early on I started to hit road blocks: pervasive pre-Anita Hill sexual harassment in the work place, my inability or lack of desire to work 12 to 15 hour days on a regular basis and live out of hotel rooms, and then the biggest obstacle of all: the loud beat of my own biological clock drumming in my ears. I became obsessed with babies and then when I had them I just couldn't leave them with a stranger. Don't get me wrong, before I turned 30 I was planning on having it all: the high profile career, power, and prestige, enough money to never depend on a man to pay my bills, a gorgeous husband and beautiful, brilliant, accomplished, well-adjusted children. (I'm pleased to report I do indeed have the husband and the children.) I assumed I would have a live-in nanny or two with Mary Poppins' qualifications.

But the reality is that as soon as I held that first baby boy in my arms, there was no way I was going to leave him with anyone with fewer qualifications than me, his highly educated mom. After all, how could I give this precious child anything less than the very best and I believed in my heart no one else could give him what I could and would love him like I do. Seventeen years later and two more children, the rest is history.

Now I'm standing on the edge of an empty nest and I wonder what happened to the me I used to be. The smart, pretty, ruthlessly ambitious me who planned to have it all.

And that's why I hate Sarah Palin. She appears to have it all and it's not fair! She started out on the PTA and worked her way all the way up to being a popular Governor. She seems to be a good mom. Except you've got to wonder about the pregnant seventeen year-old daughter. On the other hand being the mother of a seventeen year-old with first hand experience observing the impaired nature of the teenage brain, and remembering what it was like being seventeen and "in love" for the first time, I can see how an unplanned pregnancy might happen, even with a highly vigilant mother.

I hate Sarah Palin because I'm jealous. Just like I was jealous in high school of the girl who was the star of the basketball and tennis teams and voted homecoming queen. I was the one who did all the work, planning and implementing the entire week of homecoming festivities, I was the behind the scenes architect of it all. My God, I was her Karl Rove! So what if I was the smartest girl in my class, voted most likely to succeed, and went to some of the finest schools in the country. In high school I would have traded places with the homecoming queen in a heart beat. Secretly, I used to admit to myself that if I could magically become more beautiful or smarter, I would choose the former over the latter. (I'm older and wiser and farther from beautiful now). Beauty is one of the most powerful weapons in a woman's arsenal. I think Sarah has that one figured out.

And by the way, the girl who was homecoming queen in my high school class is the mayor of my home town. How scary is that? I hate her. I feel like I'm back in high school. She may be president some day and I probably won't.