A Freshman Essay

"What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."

-- Sarah Palin, during her GOP convention acceptance speech, borrowing from the old misogynist joke, "What's the difference between a woman with PMS and a pit bull."

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So what is the difference between Sarah Palin and a pit bull? This is a fair question, and I'd like to tackle the answer as if I were a freshman in high school. A freshman assigned, in his first-semester composition class, to argue the thesis that "Sarah Palin and pit bulls are very different." Here goes:


START OF FRESHMAN ESSAY

Sarah Palin and pit bulls are very different. For example, Sarah Palin wears lipstick, whereas pit bulls, who do not have the requisite oppossable thumbs that would enable them to apply lipstick, do not and cannot wear lipstick.

The differences do not stop here:

Pit bulls don't wear up-'dos and glasses, and don't look like sexy librarians. In fact, pit bulls usually are barred from public libraries and have neither the authority nor the moxie to threaten to fire librarians who refuse to censor books, unlike Sarah Palin.

Pit bulls generally aren't theocrats, as well, and pit bulls do not belong to churches that await the rapture. Pit bulls also are generally against Alaskan secession, according to most reputed published sources, including Wikipedia. Moreover, a pit bull has never been selected as a vice presidential candidate by a major American political party, unlike Sarah Palin, and a pit bull has never been second in the line of succession to the most powerful and demanding job in the world.

Pit bulls also don't have the capacity for speech and human forms of communication, unlike Sarah Palin, who is quite adroit at reading campaign speeches from a teleprompter.

In summary, there are many differences between Sarah Palin and pit bulls. Moreover, whereas an angry pit bull can inspire fear, trepidation and worry in all humans, an angry Sarah Palin only inspires fear, trepidation and worry in liberals, most moderates, Democrats, people with Ph.Ds, people who fear Alaskan secession and John McCain's dermatologist.