Gams, God and Fakery: "Sarah Palin, the Comic Book"

Sarah Palin is truly shake-your-head dumb. John McCain should apologize for potentially putting her a myocardial infarction away from the most important job in the world.

We all know people in so far over their head they can't see the top of the hole. That's Sarah! As one McCain staffer put it, she doesn't even know what she doesn't know. Palin gives new meaning to the adage that connects "ignorance" to "bliss."

That's not to say she's not really good at what she does. As she did in Nashville for a reported $100,000, Palin repackages the prejudice, fears, scorn and anger of her groupies, cloaks them in God and the flag and feeds them back as brainless sloganeering. It is empty rhetoric and a nice pair of legs.

I wish it were the case, but the world is just not as simple as Palin's simple-minded claqueurs want it to be. In sliming their favorite targets --intellectuals and the media -- Palin is channeling every demagogue and snake oil purveyor throughout history to electrify her cataleptic base. She is the essence of every schoolyard bully who ever beat up the smart kids for their lunch money.

But "smart" does count for something. Look, if you have a brain tumor, you want surgery by a skilled neurosurgeon not a dermatology intern. If your air conditioner busts, you need a certified technician to fix it not the kid who cuts your lawn. If you expect reliable stock advice, you call a qualified broker not your doofus brother-in-law.

So when it comes to, oh let's say, climate change, geopolitics, financial meltdowns, constitutional history or astrophysics, whada ya think? Should we at least hear what scientists, scholars, economists, historians and intellectuals have to say, or totally ignore them in favor of those who dismiss global warming based on this winter's cold snap; who are enraged about terrorism policies but can't place Yemen on a world map; who are incensed by bailouts but have no clue about macroeconomics; who insist the Constitution is based on the Ten Commandments, but whose knowledge of the Revolution consists of a vaguely recalled illustration of Washington crossing some river in a boat; and who think the Big Bang is a porno flick?

This is who Palin speaks to. People who aren't inquisitive or insightful; who show no interest in conceptualization; who have no grasp of nuance of intricacy; who view complexity as an intellectual conceit.

In any case, we now have her stuck to our shoes like doggy poop. Her incalculable limitations, atrocious opinions and incredibly annoying elocution -- "how's that hopey-changey thing workin' out forya?" -- make George Bush look like a savant.