Sarah Palin Vs. Barbara Bush : Age Before Beauty

Barbara Bush made headlines by publicly hoping that Sarah Palin would "stay in Alaska" as opposed to running for President in 2012. In fact, it was a bit worse than that. She began by saying she knows "Sarah Palin dearly loves Alaska..."--and then added the bit about hoping she stays there. Which is rather akin to a Ku Klux Klan member telling the press that he knows the (N-word plural) dearly love the plantation...and he hopes they stay there....

Of course, it's not a perfect analogy by a long shot. For one thing, Sarah's got access to both Facebook and Fox News. Pick a fight with her, and guess what? You've got a fight on your hands.

It does make one ponder a bit, though. What if Mrs. Bush's clearly out of bounds statement has nothing to do with politics, Presidential qualifications,  or state(s) of residence? What if, oh unworthy but persistent thought, it has to do with the fact that George H.W.'s wife is, um, not exactly a spring chicken these days...and she just can't stand to see a younger, more attractive, highly energetic woman like Mrs. Palin taking the public spotlight?

In other words: Could the true, bone deep motive for running her mouth like that be nothing but...jealousy?

Hmmmm.....

Obviously, one incident doth not a pattern make. So...has this sort of thing happened before? Why, yes, as a matter of fact. As one example, consider the following quote from Wikipedia:

In 1984, Bush told the press that she could not say on television what she thought of then Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, but "it rhymes with rich".

Admittedly, both Ferraro and Palin may have earned their hated-by-Barbara-Bush status by daring to run for Vice President. On the other hand, Geraldine is ten years younger than Barbara, and her physical appearance in 1984 wasn't bad at all, so the jealousy hypothesis could be valid....

Or maybe it's nothing but a complete disconnect from the human condition. Jealousy certainly could have played no part in the infamous Barbara Bush statement that insulted Katrina survivors to the max:

"Almost everyone I've talked to [among the Katrina survivors] said we're going to move to Houston. What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by all the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, they're underprivileged anyway, so this--this is working very well for them."

Huh. Sarah Palin is clueless and should stay in Alaska. Geraldine Ferraro rhymes with "rich". Being crammed like sardines into the Houston Astrodome is a step up for people from New Orleans. Reviewing all of this makes one wonder a bit about reincarnation....

Mrs. Bush, did you have a past life where you told them to eat cake?

Discovering the extent of Barbara Bush's litany of insensitivity leads one to conclude: Sarah, you might really want to just consider the source on this one. For a closing section here on this page, however, the picture would not be complete without a compare-and-contrast tidbit covering your two diametrically opposing views regarding the young American soldiers who fight and die every day to defend our freedom.

Sarah, when you were Governor of Alaska, you and your Lieutenant Governor, Sean Parnell, made every possible effort to honor our fallen warriors. There's no question where you stand on this subject. In the other corner, Barbara Bush--wife to one Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces and mother to another--actually once made the following comment:

"...why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or that or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that...."

It's not relevant? Mrs. Bush, I can't speak to the beauty of your mind, not being inside your head...but a fallen American soldier's death not being relevant? Frankly, I can't think of anything more relevant.

Run, Sarah, run!