Sarah Palin: God, what a loon
The only thing more pathetic than Sarah Palin’s laughable attempt to upstage the 4th of July by resigning as Alaska governor on the Friday afternoon before the nation’s birthday are the bleating and blather from pundits and political operatives who actually think her move is part of some grand political strategy.
Strategy is not part of Palin’s vocabulary. Hell, this bimbo couldn’t plan a Saturday afternoon lunch for her family, much less a run for the Presidency.
The sad fact that this dimwit became a national political figure says more about the ineptitude of the John McCain campaign that thrust her into the limelight and the outright stupidity of the Republican Party for ever even considering her fit for office.
An even sadder fact can be found in the realization that Sarah Palin is not an anomaly of the American political system. Politics brings out the misfits, the con-artists, the egomaniacs and the unfit.
This, after all, is the system where an obese, Oxycontin-popping blowhard like Rush Limbaugh can become the de facto spokesman for the Republican Party.
The same system put George W. Bush into a job beyond both his emotional and mental capabilities.
It allowed a megalomaniacal despot like Vice President Dick Cheney to exert considerable power in office and it put a ditzy housewife from Wasilla Alaska into a position to become a step away from the Presidency.
Her rambling, incoherent announcement on Friday did not come from a woman ready for national office. A woman without substance or the intellect to handle the situation appeared before the cameras. It reminded some of Richard M. Nixon’s "you won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore" speech. Nixon came back from that to become President but Nixon was a shrewd politician. Palin isn’t.
Palin’s meltdown before the cameras reminded us of Sen. Edmund Muskie’s self-destruction in New Hampshire in 1972 or Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroeder’s tear-filled withdrawal from her Presidential race in 1987. Although both continued to serve in Congress, neither regained any real national stature and both had far more going for them than Sarah Palin.
Financially, Palin will not suffer. Her book deal will bring millions into the family bank account and fools around the country will pay her outrageous fees to speak on issues she can’t comprehend. Her resignation will bring her mounting ethics problems to end, along with the increasing debts of fighting those investigations.
America, it appears, loves losers and Palin will be the latest to cash in on her failures. For a while, at least, the media will continue to cover her like she is someone who really matters and the Republican Party will shamelessly use her to raise money.
But I doubt she will ever hold another elected office. Polls show Alaskans are fed up with their dilettante governor and she is no Hillary Clinton who can pick a state at random, buy an expensive home and become a Senator.
With luck, Sarah Palin will fade into well-deserved obscurity and we can await the arrival of the next substance-deprived national political phenomenon.
