Scott Bremner

If you are not sure of the impact that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is having on the national psyche these days, look no further than the nearest computer.

As of this writing the woman has not even accepted her party’s nomination for vice-president, and yet a simple Google search of her name will reveal thousands of inquiries, more than three thousand on You Tube alone.

I would love at this point to tell you that almost every request was an intelligent one; some attempt to find out a little more about this rising yet still largely unknown star thrust suddenly onto the national political stage.

What is her background?

What leadership has she shown?

Could she steer the country correctly should her party win the White House but something happens to a President McCain?

There’s some of that, but only some.

No, as you can imagine, thousands of Internet requests for Sarah Palin are followed by search words such as “bikini,” “naked” and “nude.”

Let's face it, it’s still not the same playing field for women.

Yes, there are also thousands of requests for information on McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, too.

None of them are followed by the words chasing the Palin requests.

And thanks to the joys of Photoshop, Sarah Palin’s head has already been transposed countless times to any number of false images, the most popular so far being the cover of Vogue magazine and another of a woman clad in a red, white and blue bikini holding a gun.

I’ve been in the public eye in a small way for more than 27 years.

Not once has anyone typed into a search engine the words “Scott Bremner, bikini.”

And don’t try it either, because no matter what you find, there’s no way that it would end well.

So Sarah Palin walks to the podium, the first woman to accept a VP nomination from the Republicans, while questions of trooper-gate, her daughter’s pregnancy and her beauty queen past continue to swirl.

Sometimes I think, even at the age of 232, that America can still act every bit the teenager.