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John McCain, I’m so pissed off at you. Not for turning your back on everything you once held dear -- like veteran’s rights or campaign finance reform -- just to make polling points. No, your willingness to trade your integrity for popularity isn’t what peeves me. It’s that screeching harpy you’ve plunged into the country’s side like a jagged thorn we can’t seem to extract.
So, we hobble along, hand pressed against our stinging wound, hoping the pus doesn’t squish out between our fingers, trying to focus on other things. But… we can’t. The thorn will not be ignored: Sarah Palin is here to stay.
It’d be easy to blame Palin’s omnipresence on the Radical Right media, but the Loudmouth Left media does it too. I adore Keith Olbermann, but if he keeps foaming at the mouth over Palin night after night, I’ll start wondering if he secretly has a thing for her. There’s a fine line between bitter hatred and ripping each other’s clothes off and rolling in a wild, sweaty tangle on the carpet.
On the other hand, Olbermann devotes far more time to lambasting Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and if hatred and animal passion are two sides of the same coin, well, errr… that’s a three-way visual that affects my psyche like salt on a slug.
So, some might snipe, what a hypocrite you are. You whine that Sarah Palin is everywhere and here you are, wasting valuable newsprint on her. And you may have a valid point, except. And here’s the except: She ain’t goin’ away. With every ear-shattering speech, she gains power like a big battery soaking up a charge. She’s mutated from “won’t be ignored” to “can’t be ignored.”
Remember that festering thorn? Sure, you could ignore it. But if it festers long enough and gets infected, left untreated, the wound becomes septic and then the entire body, and one morning, you wake up dead. Which is a really sucky way to start the day.
Palin has been passed off as a joke by most thinking people ever since we discovered that she could see Russia from her house, but the joke isn’t funny anymore. And it’s not because she’s suddenly become articulate or wise, it’s because the Radical Right is thrusting her into relevancy. They flock to touch the hem of her robe as she passes (as long as they’ve paid for a ticket to get in or purchased her book) and sadly, these people vote. And in a democracy, like it or not, They R Us. Or maybe, They R U.S. And They R Legion. (See, I’m learning to communicate like they do, in poster bites, because it may be necessary some day.)
At one of Palin’s recent rallies, a reporter asked a fan -- sporting a hat rimmed with dangling tea bags -- what he sees in Palin.
“She speaks for us. She talks the way we think,” he responded.
Now, hold that thought and set it against this average Palin soundbite (/www.tnr.com/blog/john-mcwhorter/what-does-palinspeak-mean): “We realize that more and more Americans are starting to see the light there and understand the contrast. And we talk a lot about, OK, we're confident that we're going to win on Tuesday, so from there, the first 100 days, how are we going to kick in the plan that will get this economy back on the right track and really shore up the strategies that we need over in Iraq and Iran to win these wars?”
And there’s the root of the problem. This is how Palin’s minions think. How can those of us whose neurons still make functional synaptic connections reason with people who have scrambled eggs for brains? How are we to enlighten them about Palin’s spectacular lack of qualification to hold national public office of any kind? Answer: we can’t. All we can do is stand by and watch in horror as the Palin machine gathers steam, stoked by blind rage, fear and ignorance. People, it could happen: she might be our next President.
President Palin. A catastrophe beyond anything I can comprehend. Biblical in proportion. How befitting, given that a recent Harris Poll revealed that 24 percent of Republicans believe that Barack Obama is the Antichrist. I don’t know if that’s more astonishing or hilarious. Or is it ominous?
OK, Right Wing lunatic fringe, I’ll give you this one. Let’s say you’re correct. Obama’s the Antichrist. Fine. But fair’s fair. Therefore, a pre-warning: by virtue of your claim about Obama, you hereby surrender any and all right to outrage or offense for anything that follows.
Given Sarah Palin’s $12 million haul from books and speakin’ engagements, and her uncanny ability to tweeze dollars from the wallets of “Real Americans” with her a-hollerin’ and a-screechin’ about the Constitution, guns and religion -- if Obama’s the Antichrist, then that makes Palin the
Whore of Babylon. And verily I say unto you, should you actually manage to propel her to the Presidency and global power, it will surely signify that the Apocalypse is upon us. (Cue the Four Horsemen.)
So. Palin in 2012. Will she become the Whore of Babylon or remain what she is now, the Whore of Babblin’? How’s that speaky, book-signy, Fox-hosty thing workin’ for ya, Sarah? Can you say ka-ching? (Probably not – it requires the pronunciation of “ing.”)
Y’know, the Mayans predicted 2012 would be the end of the world.
Just sayin’.
And who do we have to thank for all this? John McCain. So, thanks again, big guy, for opening up Pamdummy’s Box. Just look what you’ve unleashed on mankind.
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