That’s the cry or cheer that went up, led by no less a person than Rudolph Giuliani, after Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention when she was officially presented to the Party and America and the world as the running mate of Presidential hopeful, John McCain. And in this position of VP, if anything were to happen to McCain if he becomes president … woe betide America and several very important world issues. Pictures of Lyndon Johnson being sworn in as Prez in Airforce One with Jackie Kennedy still in her bloodstained suit are fresh in mind. Nothing so dramatic need and will happen in this case, but remember McCain is now 71 years old. Just think of utterly inexperienced and opinionated and willful Sarah Palin taking the place of Citizen Number One of the world.

OK, OK, you’ve read a lot about Sarah Palin and may even be sick of all the gushing poured on her and criticisms leveled at her. But it’s good to know more. They talk of her being a successful wife and mother of five, the latest being a Down’s syndrome sufferer who was knowingly carried to term and welcomed into the world and mark you, a life of suffering, all because the parents are pro-life and anti-abortion. You’ve probably read about her ‘sexy librarian look’ because of her hair drawn into a bun at the back. She’s said to be fresh faced and all that. "Charismatic 44 year old governor draws enthusiastic audience and is high on the approval ratings." "Bright with unfailing political instincts."

The detractors, however, seem to far outnumber the admirers. She’s been dubbed ‘Vice President Barbie’, a ‘backwoods, polar bear strangling Britney Spears manique’, among other derogatory remarks. She is said to categorize those who criticize her or work against her as ‘haters’ which trait was evident from her early political life as Mayor of Wasilla where she definitely pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievances.

What’s it to us?

Many might question as to why we are so bothered. Why should we know more about this woman? We have to for reasons too obvious to mention. Also many wonder why McCain selected this almost unknown governor of Alaska to be his running mate with her so lacking in political and power wielding experience. That about inexperience was one of the main barbs shot at Obama by the Republicans. The international press made clear that it is obvious the choice was solely McCain’s, going against some of his advisers.

The sort of person Palin is

Reading widely about this attractive woman who could be the vice president of the United States of America with a possible further run as president, the following facts emerged.

Sarah Palin is a Bible toting and quoting person. Everything is as if decreed by God. The Iraq war which she approves of and promises to continue, is God willed according to her.

Her religious beliefs go so far as to have her disbelieve the theory of evolution. And thus she has decreed in her State – Alaska – that the story of God’s creation of the world and all it holds be taught in schools along with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. She does not believe the earth is dangerously warming due to man’s over-use of fossil fuels. The melting polar ice is God’s wish or doing or a natural happening.

She is against abortion and thus she will have a woman who has been raped deliver the rapist’s child. That is really terrible since the woman will hate the foetus impregnated in her through near torture and will probably dislike the child for being a reminder of her ordeal. She upholds the abortion veto if a girl gets pregnant due to an incestuous relationship forced upon her, not minding her age and the closeness of the relationship which could positively produce an unhealthy child.

She does not believe in sex education and birth control. To prove these two strong views held by her, her daughter of 16 or 17 has got herself pregnant! If a girl child gets into this situation in Sri Lanka the mother is blamed roundly. The blame laid on her for the unfortunate teenage pregnancy is even greater than the blame laid on the young man who got the girl in trouble. In conservative local families, mothers do not educate their kids in sex and no mention is made of birth control. It is not practiced sometimes by the mother, she depending more on natural ways of controlling unwanted pregnancies. But our children rarely get into the predicament of Sarah Palin’s eldest daughter. Why? Because they are looked after and shown great concern by their mothers even though the mothers may be holding down full-time, responsible jobs.

Denying birth control connotes not giving reproductive rights to women. Hence Palin could be accused of violating a woman’s basic human right to choose the time when she is ready and able to bear a child.

Sarah Palin is a gun toting provider of flesh to her family. It has been reported that single-handedly she has killed arctic animals like the caribou, skinned it, removed its entrails and brought it home to feed her family. Boastfully (or otherwise) press articles have claimed that the Palin family never bought, nor buys, the fish and flesh they need to feed themselves and their extended family. Her husband too is good with the gun and the fishing rod. "She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air." And she’s a mother!

Contrast this with what prevails in our country. When a woman gets pregnant, the first thing she stops doing is use eggs in her cooking or at least she stops cracking them. This was so, at least with the women I knew and myself, when the fact of unfertilized eggs was unknown. Every egg carried a potential life and thus the sparing of breaking eggs.

The most controversial wrong, to me personally, is Sarah Palin’s banning of books from the public library of Wasili on her whim and fancy, when she was mayor of the city. She is known to have insisted the public librarian remove certain books from the library shelves because she, Sarah Palin, did not approve of them. Censoring a book and removing it from library shelves is a major undertaking and not carried out unless it is a very considered, majority opinion. Palin is said to have objected in 1995 to the book titled "Daddy’s Roommate." You can guess why.

I had written all this when a friend sent me an email that’s going around in which Eve Ensler, the writer/dramatist is attempting to dissuade American women from voting for Sarah Palin. If women, particularly of the WASP type do not vote for the Veep candidate, then the Republicans are going to be in difficulty because they won’t vote for McCain either since Palin comes in alongside him.

Eve Ensler is an outspoken feminist and author of the drama script "Vagina Monologues" which had a very successful run in Broadway and in England too about four years ago.

Ensler e-mails thus: "I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote that will determine the future not just of the US but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependence and destruction.

To most of us in this small island, we cannot believe there is a contest to consider between "the skinny guy from south side Chicago who’s never shot a moose" with his sober vice presidential candidate, and the combination of McCain and Palin. But the voters of America are oftimes obtuse. There are the white fundamentalists and those women who have not gotten over the defeat of Hillary Clinton by a black man. We were thankful Obama chose a male running mate and not the woman he defeated in the run up to the presidential polls which would have got him two for one! Admittedly we were great admirers of Bill Clinton as President, but the campaign showed how much prejudice there still is against American blacks and the political power craze of the lady and her husband.

I saw this in an international newspaper. "McCain + Palin = McPain."