Thank You, Sarah

Dear Sarah,

Please excuse this letter's informal opening, but I feel as if I know you so well, first names are only appropriate. Referring to you as Mrs. Palin would be overly stiff and just wrong, somehow.

So, Sarah, I'm writing today to say how much I've enjoyed your media blitz and to share with you, on this Thanksgiving holiday, some of the many things for which I am grateful.

The recent 24/7 news cycle has been broadcasting non-stop interviews with you of late, which makes me very, very thankful for the First Amendment. Seeing you on TV, or reading about you in the paper, reminds me that, in America, anyone can bask in uncensored media attention, no matter how inane their message is. Because of the First Amendment, Americans have just as much right to listen to vapid speech as they do to profanity, or to sound reason, or to eloquence. Thank you for reminding me of this.

You've also made me thankful for the many women who trail blazed ahead of you and me, winning for future generations of females the right to vote and the opportunity to run for elected office. I'm reminded of the suffragettes and of those first women who secured seats in Congress: Margaret Chase Smith and Shirley Chisholm come to mind. Now a woman with your qualifications, Sarah, can be tapped for the vice presidency, which tells me that our gender no longer needs to be substantially more qualified than their male counterparts in order to be taken seriously. Our foremothers deserve a nod of gratitude on this Thanksgiving day for all of their pioneering efforts.

Finally, I have to hand it to the editor or marketing person who came up with the title for your memoir, "Going Rogue." Until the book's release, I had never thought of you as rogue, given that the dictionary defines such a person as a "villain, trickster, swindler, cheat." But maybe you're hiding some ill deeds that the National Enquirer will soon reveal. While that would be fun, I doubt that you have many more skeletons in your closet. More likely, the book title was just a cynical attempt to position you as an iconoclast of the right, a strategy that may well work. But if true roguishness was your goal, you might consult with your own rogue from Wasilla, Levi Johnston, for some tips. Or better yet, Martha Stewart might give you some pointers. Martha has actual prison time on her rogue resume. Just a thought.

Seriously, Sarah, the rogue thing is at odds with your Alaska-beauty-queen- embracing-home-and-hearth image, which worked so well for you and reminded all of us of the importance of family, especially at Thanksgiving. So in honor of the family values that you previously espoused, I'd like to propose an idea: Rather than spending $25 on your book, people could donate that amount to a local charity that helps needy families. Just to show that I'm fully committed to this idea, I pledge to send $25 to my local chapter of Habitat for Humanity in lieu of owning my own copy of "Going Rogue."

What do you think? If you tell your friends and I tell mine, and they tell all of their friends, we could do some serious fundraising. True, your publisher, Harper Collins, might be a tad annoyed at the idea, but they're a big company and they'll get over it. After all, my idea is for the greater good. Let me know if you're in. Happy Thanksgiving.

With warm regards from Glendale,
Cathleen