Having spent our summer months frolicking in the delights of global warming, theMitmita Girls were quite unprepared for the blustery cold front that invaded our senses in early fall. Northern winds have brought us a new twist in our already interesting election season and so Mitmita decided to turn our attention to a most unusual caricature: Sarah Palin.
Since the climate in Addis is so very much controlled by the whims of the United States government, we thought it most prudent of us to examine this moose huntress and how she fares on the topics of the horn of Africa. Unlike you, we were not at all shocked that no one to date has raised the “African Question”; we are quite aware that the mainstream media is simply waiting with baited breath for Mitmita to provide our audience with the most salacious bits of news on the hockey mom’s dreams of Africa. Alas since she cannot quite make out Ethiopia from her home in Alaska, her knowledge on that country might not be as extensive as say, her well established expertise on Russian nuclear proliferation and Vladmir Putin rearing his head into the Alaskan airspace.
Mitmita was privileged enough to arrange the very first full length and (somewhat) unabridged international interview between a head of state and our dudette veep candidate. New as she may be to the national and indeed the international stage, her political views, her adept handling of interviews and her unique vision of her governing style struck us as similar to yet another phenom: Meles Zenawi. We thought a tête-à-tête between Madame “Raised in the Alaskan Wilderness” and Monsieur “Fought in the Eritrean Wilderness” was most apropos.
The Prime Minister extended an invitation to the Governor to visit Addis Ababa, adding a second stamp to her passport. “Awesome!”, the governor squealed.
Prior to meeting Meles Zenawi, Ms. Palin’s only other African friend has been her sublimely delightful spiritual leader Thomas Muthee whose claim to fame is freeing Kenyan villages of witches. Yes. Witches. We are all waiting on tenterhooks for his appointment to the Justice Department in the Palin-McCain administration. So it is rather with a deep fondness for zealots, that Ms. Palin extended an offer of friendship to Mr. Zenawi.
Seeking to avoid all accusations of political pandering or worst yet partisanship, we wanted to present the conversation between these two great thinkers uninterrupted and sans commentary. Yet having had to interpret Ms. Palin’s lingua franca in recent interviews with Katie Couric, we thought it best to paraphrase the conversation. You see as exceptional as we Mitmita Girls are, we just don’t speak “Palinese”.
The Governor and the Prime Minister bonded over some similar guiding principles. For one, he admired her administration’s policy of charging rape victims for rape test kits.
Since Zenawi has succeeded in using rape as a weapon of war in Somalia and Ogaden, he now has an additional way of recouping state expenses. That idea is almost as good as charging victim’s families for the price of the bullets that killed their loved ones!
Following the discussion of fundraising through unconventional means, the pair moved on to the media. Members of the press, those cursed beasts, have hounded both individuals to no end. While Ms. Palin has succeeded in dodging many of them by simply hiding in one of John McCain’s twelve houses, Zenawi has had members of the press imprisoned or assaulted by his security forces. No doubt Ms. Palin lamented the existence of freedom of the press in America. Perhaps she could seek solace and better guidance from her neighbor Putin who while rearing his head into her kitchen window for some homemade moose stew, could speak to her about his penchant for liquidating free thinking Russian journalists.
As the conversations went on, aides of both leaders noted a burgeoning friendship between the one time student who attended five colleges in six years and the college dropout.
Since much of the world is staring down a depression, it is only natural that the global financial status would be of chief concern to Ms. Palin and Mr. Zenawi. Lambasted by learned economists, the two have stoically clung to their talking points. As a former faux Marxist masquerading as a faux capitalist circa 1991, Mr. Zenawi has been an advocate of the market and specifically of a stock market for Ethiopia. This is notwithstanding that we still have an agricultural system that uses an ox-plough. Ms. Palin, on the other hand familiar only with markets that are shopping malls, has struggled to articulate her economic position, urging simply that “it’s gotta be about job creation.” On other financial matters however, the similarities between Palin and Zenawi are quite eerie.
They both received huge amounts of funds from the United States congress. Palin’s stash is courtesy of pork barrel spending while Zenawi’s monies takes the shape of military funding. With her allocations, she builds bridges to nowhere while he burns bridges between Ethiopia and Somalia.
Several hours later, the polite discussions over cappuccinos between the bubbly loquacious governor and the calculating Prime Minister almost ended in disaster. On the mention of Ethiopia as the home of the oldest human, who is 3.2 million years old, Ms. Palin protested vehemently. “Eve was no more than 6,000 years old,” she exclaimed, fishing for her pocketbook copy of Gideon’s Bible. The prime minister’s aides assured the moose hunter that Dinkenesh was indeed much older and that additionally, 6,000 years ago, dinosaurs did not coexist with humans. Seeking proof of their words, she insisted on seeing this Dinkenesh. Mr. Zenawi then informed her that Dinkenesh is on her American tour much like Ms. Palin is on her Ethiopian tour. Ms. Palin remained unshaken from her creationist position and to break the impasse Mr. Zenawi assured her if there was a way for him to make money from an “intelligent design” gimmick, he would also entertain her belief.
As day was ending, Mr. Zenawi wanted to impart some words of wisdom unto the young governor, cautioning her to keep abreast of major developments. “What happens in Tora Bora is just as important to you as what happens in Alaska.” She stared ahead and had that now classic what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about deer caught in headlights look. Then she blinked and she nodded confirming that as a mother, exploring all of the new and exciting rides at Disneyland are definitely on the top of her list.
***
Confirming their new Best Friends Forever status, Ms. Palin and Mr. Zenawi were tickled to discover towards the end of their “getting to know you” session that they in fact had one other item on which to bond: succession. Palin’s family is closely linked to the Alaska Independence Party, a successionist group which advocates Alaska’s independence from the United States. In Ms. Palin, Mr. Zenawi sees a leader who shares his love of dividing up a country into different group and separating it bit by bit! The Governor might be his soul mate after all.
Mr. Meles walked away quite convinced that the little lady from Alaska would one day make a fine African dictator—once Alaska secedes, floats away and attaches itself to East Africa, which we now know Ms. Palin can not see from her tanning bed.
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