Palin may be taking hits after the tragic Tucson shooting, but that's no reason her original and highly entertaining reality show shouldn't be put back on the air.
Whether you agree with Sarah Palin's politics or not, if you watched the shows a religiously as I did, you had to hand it to Sarah -- she made for gripping television.
The former Vice-Presidential candidate was impossible NOT to watch for multiple reasons. Number one, she IS gorgeous, so whether she was huddling in rain gear next to droopy Kate Gosselin, or in a pink sweatshirt in her Wasilla home, or gutting halibut in a fishline uniform -- she looked non-stop magnetically beautiful. Especially when you consider she's 46 and a mother of five.
Number two, she's jaw-droppingly outrageous. Rosie O'Donnell couldn't do her better. She managed to get a deadly swipe in at Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign, as she hunted for smores fixings. "Where are the smores ingredients? This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert."
On her last episode, she gleefully called wussy Kate Gosselin a "city mouse," and she managed many times to guffaw over making liberals "wee wee!"
Number three, she stays on point, and every good television show delivers an enticing on point message. For Modern Family, it's the essential value of family, for American Idol, it's that talent and hard work can take you to the top.
In Sarah Palin's Alaska, she managed to combine the two. She repeatedly spouted off about her love for her wonderful "Alaskan" family AND was pretty much a broken record endorsing the power of a strong work ethic as well as self reliance and personal independence.
The bottom line -- no matter what your political beliefs -- you can't argue with the seductive appeal of the traditional American values of family and independence. And really who wouldn't want to have a fabulous, loving extended family like the Palins, and who wouldn't want to roll up their shirt sleeves and build success from the ground up, like Sarah and her husband Todd appear to have -- that's powerful TV.
Then there is Sarah Palin's unique form of homey self-expression. Americans always fall for the down-home talk that Palin specializes in. I'm "flipping mad," "'it's a big darn deal," "you betcha," are amongst her favorite expressions. Just listening to her, is entertaining.
Finally, Palin is surrounded by a full cast of characters that couldn't be improved by Central Casting -- kindly but gruff grandpa Chuck, handsome rugged dogsledder/fisherman/Mr. Mom Todd, adorable feisty daughter Piper and good girl gone bad gone good again, daughter Bristol.
I'm going to miss Sarah trying to shove her values down my throat while I'm wondering who the Lipstick Pitbull will bite each episode.
She's young enough to keep us guessing about her Presidential ambitions for years, while teasing us on TV for at least another season or two.