"Backstage in the arena, a little girl in Mary Janes pushes her brother in a baby carriage, stopping a few yards shy of a heavy, 100-foot-long black curtain. The curtain splits the arena in two, shielding the children from an audience of 4,000 people clapping their hands in time to The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The music accompanies a video Salute to Military Heroes that plays above the stage where, in a few moments, the childrens mother will appear.
When the girl, Piper Palin, turns around, she sees her parents thronged by admirers, and the crowd rolling toward her and the baby, her brother Trig, born with Down syndrome in 2008. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, bend down and give a moment to the children; a woman, perhaps a nanny, whisks the boy away; and Todd hands Sarah her speech and walks her to the stage. He pokes the air with one finger. She mimes the gesture, whips around, strides on four-inch heels to stage center, and turns it on.
Behind the curtain, Piper plays with other children, oblivious to the speech. She runs in circles, plays hide-and-seek, poses for snapshots, and generally acts as if she were in another worlduntil she gets the signal to do her job: march to the podium, pick up Palins speech, and allow Palin to make a public display of maternal affection.
On cue, Piper parts the curtain. As the child appears, a loud and doting Awww melts through the crowd."
****
"Palin delivers basically the same speech she gave 18 hours earlier to the Tea Party group in Independence. You could pretty much replace the word constitution, from yesterdays remarks, with Bible, and be good to go. Then Palin departs from the script and speaks as if from the heart, describing her fear and confusion upon discovering that Trig would be born with Down syndrome. I had never really been around a baby with special needs, she tells her listeners. For what its worth, this statement is untrue. Depicting the same moment of discovery in her own book, Palin writes that she immediately thought of a special-needs child she knew very well: her autistic nephew. Such falsehoods never damage Palins credibility with her admirers, because information and ideology are incidental to this relationship."
****
"It still does not quite seem real to most Alaskans that there are all these thousands of people in the Lower 48 turning out for
Sarah. It seems all the more unreal because Palins image as an engaging, down-to-earth small-town hockey mom was more or less accurate until two years ago. To be sure, some elements of that image were never true to life. This whole hunter thing, for Sarah? That is the biggest fallacy, says one longtime friend of the family. That woman has never hunted. The picture of her with the caribou she says she shot? She got out of the R.V. to pose for a picture. She never helps with the fishing either. Its all a joke. The friend goes on to recall that when Greta Van Susteren came to the house to interview Palin [Sarah] cooked moose chili and whatnot. Todd was calling everyone he knew the day beforeDo you got any moose? Desperate.
****
"Sometimes the children rebelled. A campaign aide remembers that one of the Palin children found her mothers public displays of piety especially grating. Though Palin prayed and read the Bible every night, aides never saw the family join her for devotionals. Youre just putting on a show. Youre so fake, one of the children said when Palin made a point of praying in front of other people. This is not who you are. Why are you pretending to be something youre not?