Maureen Dowd's column today is a list of ways that she is just Sarah Palin.

I was beginning to panic. I pored over the book to see if there was anything that I shared in common with this apotheosis of traditional American values.

We both had what Palin calls "a love of the written word" and we both won Veterans of Foreign Wars writing contests as children.

We both read "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and "Animal Farm."

We both came from families that loved Ronald Reagan, drove Ramblers and watched "The Lawrence Welk Show" and "The Wonderful World of Disney" on Sunday nights.

Palin's father offered to let her hold some moose eyes. My dad came from Ireland, where they ate sheep eyes soup.

Sarah and I both banged on the upright piano in the living room and twirled around to "The Sound of Music."

We both grew up loving Hershey's bars and bacon and steak. As Sarah explains her carnivore philosophy: "I always remind people from outside our state that there's plenty of room for all Alaska's animals - right next to the mashed potatoes."

She hunted moose, and I hunted for Bullwinkle on TV.

We both belonged to the scouts, were baby sitters and kept diaries. (Of course, I was writing about making Jiffy Pop, and she, stacking firewood.)

We both now have stressful lives where we sometimes, as she puts it, want "a wife" to organize things. And we both went through an Ann Taylor period before discovering Dolce & Gabbana at consignment shops.

And both of them are propped up and supported by powerful, supposedly smart people for no other reason than that they both annoy liberals.