We Already Know Everything There Is to Know About Sarah Palin

Her latest Newsweek cover profile paints a very familiar picture

We've watched her reality TV show. We've followed her around the country. We've meticulously combed through years of her emails. We have found no more hidden shadows, unplumbed depths, or secret dark sides. There comes a time where we must face the fact that we already know absolutely everything there is to know about Sarah Palin. That time may very well be now.

The recent Newsweek boasts a brand-new, blockbuster profile of Sarah Palin that, like so many profiles and investigations before it, tells us very little about Palin that we don't already know. "I believe that I can win a national election," Palin declares, like so many other almost-candidates for the GOP 2012 primary. If she doesn't run, it will be because of "family," she says -- though all members would support her -- once again offering the favored response of politicians who have dropped out and likened the decision to some sort of noble sacrifice.

“We don’t advertise where we’re going,” Palin describes. Boyer, the author of the profile, calls this "the understatement of the political season." It depends on how one reads the word "advertise," of course. Palin did after all travel around the country in a bus with her name massively painted on the outside, and spoke to the media throughout the tour. She just didn't give any advance notice, causing the press to scramble after her. Likewise, the profile covers Palin's appearance at the screening of the documentary film homage to her, The Undefeated, which she agreed to attend a week before the premiere, giving the devoted director only five days to plan the event. Without word, she didn't show up when she had agreed, leaving hired security forces waiting for her in an airfield and the organizers at a loss. She finally turned up an hour before the event, "signing autographs and posing for photographs with admirers." In that story, her not "advertising" is depicted as being less about maintaining privacy than just acting inconsiderately.

Any other details from the piece? The Palins rent Chevy Malibus. Todd Palin buys Slim Jims, a fact which Sarah Palin uses to describe the effect of inflation: "every time I walk into that grocery store, a couple of pennies more...” she says. But beef jerky aside, we're given the same portrait of Palin that she has steadfastly maintained from the outset. She keeps her distance from many in the Republican party, and they keep their distance from her: "I went out there and I supported them in their campaigns, and I put some of them on the map. And to this day, we have not heard from them..." She is unafraid of taking on the media, where she thinks that it has lied about her. And her devoted fans "burn through" their savings in support of what they believe will be a Palin run for the presidency, while she won't admit whether or not she has even made a decision: “But we’re still thinking about it. I’m still thinking about it.” As she has said time and again, “We don’t advertise where we’re going.”