America's Sweethearts: Wink, Wink. Kiss, Kiss?

Tom Terrific, who follows this blog from his vantage point Up North in a battleground state whose major product rhymes with "breeze," wrote an e-mail that found The Mighty Quinnette to be a combination of Frances McDormand ("Fargo's" Sheriff Marge Gunderson), Tina Fey (the "SNL" parody of Sarah Palin), and Judy Garland ("The Wizard of Oz's" Dorothy Gale). In keeping with the show biz theme, a psychotherapist in today's Salon envisioned a Rock Hudson-Doris Day relationship between The Geezer and The Mighty Q. Suppress the gag-reflex if possible. If this is (fair & balanced) political fantasy, so be it.

[x Salon]
Open Salon: Who's My Little Maverick?
By Thom Rutledge

Picture this: Dick Cheney in a debate. In response to a question that has nothing to do with what he plans to say, Cheney says, “It is our solemn responsibility to rid this world of evil and if, in order to do so, we have to take extraordinary measures, then that is precisely what we must do.” And then, perfectly timed to punctuate his response, Cheney looks directly into the camera and…

winks.

I think that Sarah Palin actually believes that she can flirt her way to the top. And watch John McCain talk about her: he grins and chuckles, and his eyes have a little sparkle. He sits up a little straighter when he talks about her. And they even have a little pet name to call each other: Maverick. I can almost hear them ending a late night phone conversation. John sitting on his bed, wearing presidential seal pajamas Sarah bought for him, and Sarah in her camouflage nighty, on her stomach, stretched across her bed, leg bent, calf and foot in the air.

“Who’s my little Maverick?” John says in his best low, sexy voice.

“I am,” Sarah says with the inflection of a little girl, “And you’re my big, strong Maverick.”

And then there’s the silence that comes when neither wants to be the first to hang up.

Nothing like a younger woman fawning on you to make you feel young again. But Sarah is not flirting with John; she’s flirting with us. She is aiming her clever little colloquialisms, smiles and winks directly at the American people, believing that we will so enamored by her, that we will fail to notice that she is not only unqualified for the position for which she is applying, but that she is sarcastic, rude and condescending. Some might call her cute, some might call her clever, some call her gutsy, some even call her sexy (I don’t actually get that one).

Here’s what I call her: arrogant for no apparent reason. Guess who else this describes? Yes, you guessed right. It is our current president. It didn’t work out so well to have a president we would like to have a beer with. Do we really think that electing someone because we might like to take her to a dance is going to be any different?

I think we will all be better off if John and Sarah just rented a cabana on the beach or a cabin in the mountains, to get whatever out of their systems. I can see them snuggling in front of a big fire.

“You’re my Maverick.”

“No, you’re my Maverick.”

Wink, wink, kiss, kiss.

[Thom Rutledge is a psychotherapist in Nashville, TN and author — most recently — of Embracing Fear: How to Turn What Scares Us into Our Greatest Gift. Rutledge graduated from Austin College in Sherman, TX with a BA in psychology. He holds a MS in Social Work from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.]

Copyright © 2008 Salon Media Group, Inc.

Get the Google Reader at no cost from Google. Click on this link to go on a tour of the Google Reader.