Why I Don't Like Sarah Palin

Let me first start by saying that I have not yet decided who I will vote for in the November general election. I'm a registered Republican, though that little 'R' on my voter registration does not preclude me from using my brain to decide whose chad to punch. (I may be from Florida, but a chad has never been left hanging by this girl!)

Second, I don't necessarily need to like someone to vote for them. Case in point: I voted for George W. Bush. Twice. Do I like the guy? No. Did I think he would do a better job than Al Gore or John Kerry at the time? Absofuckinglutely. Did I make a bad decision? Perhaps, but that's not the point. Bad decision or not, I don't need to like someone to vote for him - or her.

My reason for disliking Sarah Palin has nothing to do with her inexperience. It has nothing to do with her positions on abortion (against it - even when rape or incest occurs), sex education (abstinence!), or foreign policy (she can see Russia from her house - thank you SNL!). My dislike for her does not stem from whether she did or did not try to have certain books removed from the Wasilla public library (she says no, the librarian she summarily fired says yes) or because she's forcing her pregnant teenage daughter into a shotgun marriage to a self-proclaimed Alaskan redneck (Todd Palin, grow a pair and stand up for your daughter, please). Nor does it arise out of the fact that she opposes same-sex marriage (a loveless opposite-sex marriage is God's plan, but a loving same-sex marriage is an abomination?) and supported a referendum for an amendment to the Alaska constitution to deny state health benefits to same-sex couples. And, I really don't care whether she waffled on her decision about the 'Bridge to Nowhere' (I'll likely never have to drive from Ketchikan to Gravina Island).

Admittedly, those things don't make me love her. But they don't necessarily make me dislike her either. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. What makes her intolerable to me is her voice. All of you Seinfeldphiles out there remember the episode where the sound of Mary Hart's voice on TV, sent Kramer into convulsions. Well, same scenario except Mary Hart = Sarah Palin and Kramer = me. She starts talking and I immediately want to start tearing apart my throw pillows and stuffing the cotton batting into my ears to make it stop. That Minnnesotan-North Dakotan-Idahoan-Alaskan amalgamated accent, has caused me to wear out the 'Mute' button on my TV remote and has forced me to figure out how to use the 'Close Captioning' feature.

It's not just the accent. The nasally tone and the clipped annunciations that emanate from her crimsony-lipsticked mouth make my gums bleed. I don't know if I can stand four or more years of that voice. If I vote the McCain/Palin ticket, I know that I'm going to run the risk of having to watch the news shows with english subtitles for the foreseeable future. I would rather watch 27 hours of the "Head On - Apply directly to your forehead" commercial on a continuous loop while getting a root canal, than listen to Ms. Palin address the nation.

Bless her heart, Sarah can't help it that her voice is more annoying than Melanie Griffith in a room full of chihuahuas. There are a lot of things she can change, but her voice isn't one of them. If the McCain/Palin ticket doesn't win the pennant, Sarah can always audition if the Coen brothers decide to make a sequel to 'Fargo' (her character would get my vote for the woodchipper), but if this duo does manage to take it to the (white) house, I'm going to need some new throw pillows.