Aaron Sorkin vs The Phony Pioneer Girl

In an article that seems tailor-made for me, Aaron Sorkin has issued a screed against former half-term Governor Sarah Palin. Faithful readers of this blog will know that Sorkin is a personal favorite - Sports Night and The West Wing are two of my all-time favorite shows, and The Social Network is undoubtedly the best written film of the year. On the flip side, let's just say that Palin is ... not my favorite anything, except maybe as a target to complain about. But Sorkin? He's on point, ripping into Palin for carving up a moose on her "reality" show and first issuing a pre-emptive strike (on Facebook, natch) by saying:

"Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation."

I should preface this by saying an actual member of the "Hollywood elite" complaining about Palin in the Huffington Post of all places isn't too earth-shaking. But, as always with Sorkin, it's not just what he says but how damn well he says it:

Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt. But like absolutely everybody I know, I don't relish the idea of torturing animals. I don't enjoy the fact that they're dead and I certainly don't want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn't do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart.

I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don't watch snuff films and you make them. You weren't killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I've tried and tried and for the life of me, I can't make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing.

I'm able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.

So I don't think I will save my condemnation, you phony pioneer girl. (I'm in film and television, Cruella, and there was an insert close-up of your manicure while you were roughing it in God's country. I know exactly how many feet off camera your hair and make-up trailer was.)

And you didn't just do it for fun and you didn't just do it for money. That was the first moose ever murdered for political gain. You knew there'd be a protest from PETA and you knew that would be an opportunity to hate on some people, you witless bully. What a uniter you'd be -- bringing the right together with the far right.

Like I said, this screed won't change a single person's opinion of either Palin or Sorkin, but it's damn good writing and as good as any takedown of the utter phony that is Sarah Palin.