Let's get one thing straight. I speak to Sarah Palin the public figure; not to Sarah Palin the person. It's not my concern to judge her in that regard.
Frankly, at the end of the day, I would be fine with public figures doing their charity anonymously, because that's real charity in the first place. Corporations and politicians do their charity to promote 'good will' right before/during/after they **** you up the ass. I'm sorry if you haven't figured that out yet.
SP doesn't do anything that is not designed to improve her station. How much was that check? I guarantee she got the best bang for her buck advertisement-wise. I can tell you that her motives were far from altruistic. In fact, that's why she's calling out McCain and Hillary (people who she allegedly despises). If they do it and she's the driving force behind it, then that maximizes her personal advertising. There was no mention of her calling upon the common person to do so. Where's the advertisement for her in such follow-up occurrences?
You speak about a person as a public figure, and not as a human being, and then assign that public figure a narrow and negative category without any personal knowledge whatsoever. And you guarantee your arrogant and dismissive assertion by using terms like "**** you up the ass?" She donated money. What did she gain that others doing the same thing have not? I suspect they all got cold from the ice and warm from the noble charity.
While I agree that charity is more impressive with done anonymously, the social-media driven "ALS Challenge" is by nature not a private endeavor....it is driven by Facebook. So, if you don't want to see her doing it, or the thousands of others doing so, then don't watch it.