Love her or hate her, we saw a side of Sarah Palin last night that must have caught observers at every end of the spectrum by surprise.
That would be her boring side.
And while some of us thought that America was going through tough times – what with towering unemployment, bank bailouts and a tidal wave of foreclosures – it turns out that nope, everything’s going just honkey dorey. Or at least it is in the version of “Real America” we were presented by Palin and Fox News last night.
Thursday marked the debut episode of Real American Stories, an hour-long concept so lukewarm and innocuous that the network is only committing to air it “periodically.” If the aim of the show was to remove Palin from a political context, and present her in a rosy light, then mission accomplished: Only a couple minutes into the premiere, she was flanked by a dozen or so preening grade school students from impoverished areas, all now on a path to a better future thanks to a generous philanthropist who’s committed to hep pay for their education. It was vintage hallmark.
The show is so soft and cuddly, in fact, that there’s almost no variation in the texture worth discussing. It is slick, smooth and wafer-thin. Give it five minutes and it’ll evaporate right in front of your eyes.
