Fear, Loathing & Laughter on the Dawson Trail

“On a Christmas day, we were mushing our way over the Dawson Trail…”

So goes “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, Robert Service, an Englishman from the previous century who was lured from civilization to “the land of gold” and joined the famous Klondike Gold Rush as miners flocked to faraway frozen Alaska.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve been reading about the new Klondike Dirt Rush as the media and Obama’s wolves (same crowd) have mushed up to Alaska to try to find something, anything, that will derail the shooting political star of America’s favorite hockey mom, Gov. Sarah Palin.

Poor Maureen. The red-headed columnist from the Noo Yawk Times is part of the hit team the Obama press sent way up north to Alaska to dig dirt on Sarah. Must be getting crowded on the Klondike with mainstream media from all over the country joining Obama’s team of 30 wolves, lawyers, investigators and bean counters that the Wall Street Journal reports were “air-dropped” into Alaska to join the hunt for the elusive dirt on Sarah.

The results to date bring to mind that stupid symbol somebody in the Obama camp came up with, the two hands forming a big O. So far the score is a big fat zero for the MSM and Obama’s wolfpack and Sarah’s popularity rating is still at 80 percent in her home state, including the Alaskan Democrats. Plus according to the national polls, her numbers keep rising in all the rest of Obama’s “57 states.”

So score it “Sarah 57, Wolves 0.” And poor Maureen is finding less than zero in her search for somebody, anybody, to criticize homegirl Sarah.

I wandered through the Wal-Mart, which seemed almost as large as Wasilla, a town that is a soulless strip mall without sidewalks set beside a soulful mountain and lake.

Wal-Mart has all the doodads that Sarah must need in her career as a sportsman — Remingtons and “torture tested” riflescopes, game bags for caribou, machines that imitate rabbits and young deer and coyotes to draw your quarry in so you can shoot it, and machines to squish cows into beef jerky.

I talked to a Wal-Mart mom, Betty Necas, 39, wearing sweatpants and tattoos on her wrists.

She said she’s never voted, and was a teenage mom “like Bristol.” She likes Sarah because she’s “down home” but said Obama “gives me the creeps. Nothing to do with the fact that he’s black. He just seems snotty, and he looks weaselly.”

Ten Obama supporters in Wasilla braved taunts and drizzle to stand on a corner between McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. They complained that Sarah runs government like a vengeful fiefdom and held up signs. A guy with a bullhorn yelled out of a passing red car: “Go back to the city, you liberal Communists!”

At gatherings in The Last Frontier, pastors pray for reporters, drilling evokes cheers and Todd Palin is hailed as a guy who likes to burn fossil fuels.

I had many “Sarahs,” as her favorite skinny white mocha is now called, at the Mocha Moose. “I’ve seen her at 4 a.m. with no makeup,” said manager Karena Forster, “and she’s just as beautiful.”

Just a guess here, but I bet this was Maureen’s first visit to a Wal-Mart. Big scoop, they sell rifles at Wal-Mart! And the only Wal-Mart mom she finds who will actually talk to the snooty Noo Yawk writer is not only a Sarah supporter, but says Obama’s “creepy,” “snotty” and “looks weaselly.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Then she finally finds a lonely band of 10 Obama supporters standing in the rain on a street corner. (Talk about desperate for an interview, when Maureen’s willing to stand in the rain and mess up those lovely red locks, she’s getting really desperate.) But guess what? These Obama supporters ain’t even from Wasilla. They were probably trucked in by Obama’s wolves, just for the press.

The Wasilla “guy with a bullhorn” gives their game away when he yells at the Obamaites “Go back to the city, you liberal Communists!”

And those mean ol’ pastors in Wasilla, praying for reporters! How dare they! And First Dude Todd Palin, how dare he “burn fossil fuels”!

Finally, poor Maureen thinks she’s struck paydirt. The gal at the Mocha shop confides she’s seen Sarah “at 4 a.m. with no makeup.”

I bet Maureen really perked up at that tidbit, but then the Mocha gal spoiled that quote too by adding “and she’s just as beautiful.”

I also bet nobody ever said that about Maureen without makeup at 4 a.m. But I gotta give her credit, she had to write something to keep her job and when all she could find folks to say was good stuff about Sarah, she wrote that, too, along with her catty anti-Palin screech.

Meanwhile, Maureen’s co-worker Kim Severson is getting desperate, too. Pickings on Sarah dirt are so slim, Severson files a story from Alaska about, believe it or else, moose recipes, moose excrement ear rings, moose pizza and appetizers of “moose salami on a cracker.”

The MSM witch hunt on Palin has entered a new phase. It’s gone from ridiculous to despicable and now it’s into Monty Python mode.

I gotta admit I got pretty mad at the start when all the vicious venom started spewing from the left about Palin. But it’s gone past ridiculous to funny.

And I bet lots of other hockey-mom fans like me have started to laugh at the comedy of it all. Dangerous Dan McGrew is a hockey mom named Sarah.

And Sam McGee from Tennessee, who froze up solid and was stuffed into a hole in the glowing coals and cremated? Will that turn out to be Obama?

Well, to tell the truth, that bit of casting would be taking poetic license a step too far, but I’d spoil the punch line to “Sam McGee” if I explained why.