Not to Alarm You, But Sarah Palin is Running for President of Television

Her popularity plummeting, repeated political head fakes losing their traction, and thickly framed glasses returning to fashion with a vengeance, it may seem to the casual observer that Sarah Palin's star is fading, that it's only a matter of time before her flirtation with power becomes a horrible, distant memory. But you'd be wrong. Sarah Palin is already angling to be the leader of the free world that exists inside your TV, and this fall, yet another Palin turn on a reality TV show will put Sarah in the perfect position to declare war on the Kardashians.

The Palin family's TV résumé will grow even longer later this summer, as Sarah's snow machine ridin' secessionist husband Todd Palin will join the cast of Stars Earn Stripes, an NBC reality TV show that, from the looks of it, will be just like Dancing with the Stars, but in military-type situations. Low letter-grade celebrities (Picabo Street! Dean Cain! Nick Lachey!) will partner with law enforcement and military professionals, who will guide their assigned shameless fame whores through a series of obstacles that mimic military or law enforcement training. The winner is the celebrity who would be best equipped to parachute into Afghanistan and fight Talibans or whoever we're fighting over there, except obviously the winner won't be sent overseas to actually be shot at like real military members, because the winner is not an 18-year-old from Missouri with his whole life ahead of him doing it for the scholarship money. The real winner will be a celebrity who will spout a bunch of jingoistic shit about supporting the troops and then return to their McMansion with the circular drive and the giant sectional sofa and cleaning lady. Trivializing War With The Stars!


In case you're keeping track (you are), one or more Palins have now appeared on Sarah Palin's Alaska, that 9-episode show that revealed to America that Sarah Palin may have been an Indoor Girl this whole time and Dancing with the Stars, where we learned that Bristol Palin is bad at dancing. Bristol's new show, Life's a Tripp (the first TV show in history with a title that's followed by a 2 second silence, so the audience has adequate time to quell the rising sobs of futility in their throats) will premiere tonight.

But with Sarah busy with her Fox News "analyst" gig, Bristol busy being the world's most ironic teen abstinence advocate, and Todd busy aping things military members do when they're trying to avoid death, what will the rest of the family do to fulfill their Palin family obligation to suck on TV? Eldest son Track is busy being a husband to Britta and a father to Kyla, but that doesn't mean that Track and Britta can't start signing their infant daughter up for beauty pageants ("Track's Beauty Marks"). And Willow and Piper could easily team up for a Snooki & JWoww style show about two underparented girls just trying to navigate the complex world on their own. A show starring Trig might be more tricky, as Trig has Down Syndrome and probably should be given special one-on-one care by his parents or specialists rather than being paraded around on TV like a pro-life trophy. But, on the other hand, it's been a long time since America had experienced the joy of watching a TV show where the baby and toddler characters were given sassy inner monologues voiced by famous actors. Send him to New Zealand, call the show Guinea Trig, and you've got solid gold on your hands.

Only when all of her children and descendants are adequately occupied by reality TV can Sarah Palin attack the Kardashian compound with oversized foam weapons. I'd watch the shit out of that show.