Sunday marked the second anniversary of Sarah Palin becoming a national celebrity/fixation.
In these two years, Palin has become wise to the ways of the media, playing us as much as we exploit her.
I've never interviewed Palin but I imagine that if I did, it might go something like this.
JF (brightly): It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sarah, I —
SP: Is it really a pleasure to meet me?
JF (warily): Sure, why wouldn’t it be?
SP: Oh, I have you pegged as one of those Eastern elite media people, who live to make fun of me at every turn.
JF (nervously): No-o-o. Not me.
SP (tartly): OK. I guess. What did you want to talk about?
JF (slightly too cheerfully): Well, Sarah, you are, you know, a real lightning rod for controversy and —
SP (tapping her foot impatiently): Tell me something I don’t already know, Mr. I’m-Not-a-Media-Elitist.
JF (clearly shaken by now): I want you to reflect on what it has been like to be YOU, in the fishbowl, for the past two years.
SP (rolling her eyes): Oh, I love it. I just love being a national laughingstock. I love having my and my family’s privacy invaded at every step. Wouldn’t you?
JF (flailing): Yeah, I see what you mean, Sarah, but . . .
SP (moving in for the kill): But that would never happen to you, now would it? You reek of that New York elitist. They wouldn’t think of making a cartoon character out of someone like you.
Palin’s publicist intervenes at this point and informs me that my time is up.
JF (all but throwing up his hands in dismay): I’m sorry, Sarah. I guess I’d better go. Thanks for your time.
SP (flashing her magazine-cover smile and squeezing my arm playfully): Oh, thank you, Jon!
Jon Friedman writes the Media Web column for MarketWatch.com. Click here to read his latest column.
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