Oh Puhlease

So tonight Sarah Palin is going to stand before America and paint herself as a spunky Washington outsider who is being victimized by a liberal media and misogynist lefties (the latter claim having worked for Hillary, I guess).

The whole thing makes me want to puke.

Here's what I see: The Republican party couldn't compete with the Dems this year... their enthusiasm, their vigor, their (for once) charismatic, intelligent, and politically talented candidates.

McCain watched the Hillary dramz with intense interest. He spun out a few ads to try to snare some of the Hillary vote... they failed. He threw out a few one liners to try to snare the Hillary vote... they failed. It was an idiotic notion to begin with -- Hillary's primary voters are mostly Democratic and no reactionary angst on their behalf is going to turn them into Republicans. In the end McCain, with sagging support amongst his base, eyed the female-force-to-be-reckoned-with demographic and decided he needed to find a way to tap into it. Enter Sarah Palin: a christianist cutie with whom McCain thought he could score a double... women AND the lethargic evangelical base.

So hasty was he in his selection that he didn't bother to vet her. No worries, though, 'cause when the press inevitably picked up the scent of unvetted meat he took a cue from the Hillary campaign and cried foul. "Liberal media elite! Leftist misogyny!" (as if there is such a thing... how absurd.) Unfortunately, the facts they're digging up paint a very unflattering picture... troopergate, bridge-to-nowhere-gate, Alaskan separatist-gate. The crazy christianist book banning woman has left a trail of truth behind her so big that's hard to ignore.

So now the entire Republican party is betting that everyone will forget that this woman spent almost the whole of her political career as council member and mayor of a town not much bigger than my old trailer park mobile home community. Jesus Christ, people... I have personally managed cost budgets 15 times bigger than Wasilla's. Except for the last 20 months served as the Governor of a state with 670,000 people, she is as qualified as I am to be VP!!! The whole thing is just fucking absurd. And on top of that, the carefully crafted image of reformer and maverick is all just a pack of carefully crafted lies and exaggerations. In the end her only stand-out qualification is that she's a pro-lifer who chose to birth her Downs Syndrome baby. Admirable but hardly veep-worthy.

So what the hell is the matter with the people who are rabidly supporting this woman they hardly know?? I have been watching Obama for years. What does Palin understand about the law? What does she understand about the constitution? What does she understand about the dangers that threaten this country? That would be ZERO, unless you believe that Alaska's proximity to Russia qualifies as foreign policy experience by osmosis. Or that the existence of the 4000 member Alaskan National Guard she never had anything to do with makes her Commander and Chief material. By that logic, hey -- I've read a couple Tom Clancy novels... I'm a Navy Seal!

When are people going to quit picking political leaders they'd want to have a beer with? I love having beer with my neighbors but I wouldn't put them on presidential ticket. The old guys we used to shoot pool with every Friday are very cool people but I wouldn't put them in oval office.

The whole thing sickens and enrages me. I only hope independent women see this for the obvious -- and cynical -- play it is.