Mean girls run for vice president

A while ago, I wrote about angry guys and tried to figure out what the female equivalent would be. Now I think I've got the beginnings of an answer: it's mean girls.

I still haven't been able to make myself watch the Tina Fey film "Mean Girls" because I remember vividly the mean girls I went to high school with, and even after lo these many years, they still get to me. They were always attractive and knew how to work teachers and boys alike so they always got what they wanted. They never got caught, things always worked out for them, and it drove the rest of us crazy. If we were ever insane enough to say something to some poor unsuspecting boy or to one of their adoring teachers, we were told we were just jealous, that we were being "ugly." A fellow "loser" friend said to me once after we'd been subjected to another demonstration of a mean girl's superiority at our expense, "Don't worry; she'll get her comeuppance some day." I said, "No, she won't."

Angry women don't get very far in our culture, but mean girls do just fine.

So I was trying to figure out why Sarah Palin terrifies me so much, and I realized she is one of those mean girls grown up. The nickname "Sarah Barracuda" says it all. I hope John McCain knows what he's gotten himself into because she ain't no Cindy. She can smile "real sweet" while she's saying things that cut her enemies off at the knees--or worse. She knows how to play it.

Don't turn your back on her, John.