Jumping The Shark With Sister Sarah

Sarah Palin 2007

In TV writer lingo, "Jumping the shark" signifies the episode where the series started downhill in the ratings leading directly to it's eventual death, i.e. cancellation by the network. The shark came from one segment in "Happy Days" when the Fonzi character literally jumped a shark in the water while water skiing. After that segment was aired the ratings tanked.

When did Sister Sarah Palin jump the shark? Maybe it was when she testified in Knoxville? Or maybe it was the shout out: "Drill, Baby Drill!" Or when she endorsed the loser, Joe Miller in the Senate race up there in her former home state? It could be the first Travel Channel airing of her "Death Valley Days Alaska Show." That show is certainly a political maneuver for Sister Sarah following the publicity pattern of blue blood republican Ronald Reagan's 1960's TV show "Death Valley Days." An old friend in D.C. once told me that Death Valley show was key to Reagan becoming a national political icon. The show transformed Reagan into a cowboy father figure from the far west to most Americans. Sister Sarah is attempting to do the same. The difference is that the former governor from Alaska has been stepping on many sensitive toes of the old Republican guard. Such behavior will certainly lead Sister Sarah to sing "The Someday Blues." "Someday maybe she can be the pres. Someday maybe she can be the tops. Someday maybe she can make more bucks."

And there it is. It looks like Sister Sarah is in it for the money and the celebrity just like many in the national political arena. But that's not what the old Tea Baggers want. They want the entire government, and the USA, to look like the 2011 US Senate. No Black people. No power for anyone except the white corporate shills of some other era.

And in another era there is precedent for this. Look at the populist William Jennings Bryan of the early 1900's. Bryan defended the hardshell religious people who would hear not of apes and science but only of an unseen god and the bible of the Jews and King James. Bryan ended up selling lots down in Coral Gables, Florida. Maybe Sister Sarah can find a slot on Home Shopping Network for Alaska Bearskin products. Anyway it was nice seeing you Sister. Now please get off the cable nets. The fickle USA audience is now looking elsewhere for their nostrum for fear.

William Jennings Bryan 1910