The Enigma of Sarah Palin

The United States has something, among many other things, that is very good. Public opinion has a natural right to know the things that a leader does or says within the exercise of their functions. This is how more than 24,000 of Sarah Palin’s e-mails from the 2006-2008 period, when she was governor of Alaska, have been declassified.

Palin, 46 years old, was chosen by Republican presidential candidate John McCain as his running mate, in part due to self interest; her image was permanently that of an ignorant encyclopedia, lacking the slightest hint of international vision, as well as an ultra-reactionary woman. The truth, however, is more nuanced and perhaps also more cynical.

The best thing about Palin is that which is more authentic. Her major surprise when it was announced that she would run for vice-president, and her style, as much private as public, exhibits a certain healthy anti-establishment quality, which the average citizen likes, as she is a layperson about world affairs.

The former governor has had no trouble, however, in completing this presentation of herself, in twisting or shelving with great care in the back of the closet some of her apparent convictions. To be a Republican in the United States today is the equivalent of not believing in global warming. Mrs. Palin disbelieves thoroughly, despite that in some of the e-mails she seems worried about everything that comes from space, and more legitimately, in the case of Alaska, where the exploitation of the riches beneath the ground does not always seem compatible with the preservation of a minimal equilibrium of the environment.

Sarah Palin has always sold her image (not without wit) as a “hockey mom,” thus alluding to the mothers that cheer their children from the stands at ice hockey games, one of the big recreational activities in the Yukon territories.

That image persists, and Palin still plucks the petals from the daisy to determine whether to run again, but this time for the presidency. For this, however, the e-mails do not reveal an aptitude worth mentioning.