John Kerry was much mocked for his passion for windsurfing. It was not a real sport (a man’s sport), and perhaps could be vaguely affiliated with his “French” character. In fact, the only person I know who was a windsurfer was indeed French. Windsurfing = French. On the other hand, Sarah Palin is equally famous for another unusual sport, a decidedly male occupation: moose hunting. Not only is it masculine, but it is indisputably American. But what if this candidate text (moose hunting = America) concealed a decidedly less American and masculine hobby?

We must begin by spoonerizing her name, following the Freudian dream-logic of condensation and displacement. She is not Sarah Palin, but Para Sailin. But after Tina Fey’s uncannily precise imitation of her on Saturday Night Live, we know that Palin drops all of her final g’s in proper folksy fashion (“We’ve got to get to work fixin’ this economy and helpin’ regular folks!”). In short, I submit that Sarah Palin is an ardent fan of parasailing. How French is that? I cannot imagine a more elite and decadent sport. Not even Obama would go parasailing, and he grew up in Hawai’i. Let us be clear that she parasails perhaps only in her unconscious where such transformations can take place, but we also know that the unconscious is the locus of the truth, the secret inner kernel of your being.