Opinion: Sarah Palin and Todd in People: A touch of pitbull with the lipstick
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First, we only see her on-stage. Then we see her getting embarrassed and mocked. Now, Sarah Palin is showing up everywhere, among the elite mockers (with video) and bringing large audiences.
Even NBC’s Brian Williams gets a crack at her now. (But don’t hold your breath on the Larry King request.)
People magazine got ahold of the Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate the other day, along with her husband Todd. And we actually learn a few things from the People issue coming out Friday.
Palin talks about her 18-year-old Bristol’s pregnancy, how she and her husband divvy up the family workload, that she could return to being a mom in Alaska with no regrets and whether she’d like a sixth child. ‘No-o-o-o. We’ve got our starting five. That’s the final five.’
There’s no apparent defensiveness about all the criticism and derision directed her way. But there is one little nifty pit bull nip in there about the look-alike actress who’s made no secret in public of her distaste for Palin and plays the Republican governor as a bubble head.
‘That’s funny,’ says Palin. ‘I play her bubble-headed too, when I imitate her.’
Palin says she hopes Bristol and Levi Johnston will marry before next summer, that her daughter has had....
...much experience with infants from her siblings and ‘there have been many hard-working American families lead by men and women who have received their GED’ through alternative means.
‘Levi will be on that road.... [But] they’re not going to be looking for anybody to hand them anything.’
She says she’s not heard people in her crowds shout derogatory things about the Democratic nominee, and would stop it if she did, but she’s not surprised since it’s hard to hear anything with 23,000 people on hand. She adds that she has seen the Democratic nominee urge his supporters to get in the face of the Republicans.
What about Bristol’s pregnancy?
‘She’s a very smart girl. She’s got great grades,’ says her mom, who denies ever opposing sex education. ‘She’s always been a very good athlete, very plugged into school. These are less than ideal circumstances, but she is making the most of this and she will be a very, very good and loving mother. And Levi will be a very good father. And it’s going to be good. And certainly, of course, as you point out, we’re not the first.’
Palin’s favorite times are driving out to a country cabin with family and neighbors on winter nights and watching the northern lights. But they have taken long family car trips in the Lower 48. Once, when her oldest son, Track, now 19 and in the Army in Iraq, was playing hockey in Minnesota, the whole family jumped in their pickup and drove there from Alaska.
Doesn’t that take a long time? ‘Not the way Todd drives.’
Did she have any more unusual children’s names up her three-quarters sleeves? ‘Zamboni,’ says Palin. Her husband suggests that one would not have been picked. The complete article is here.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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