Sarah Palin, the GOP's Next Big Mistake

"In The Year 2525".
"What I Am Is What I Am".
"Ode To Billie Jo".
"You Light Up My Life".
Sarah Palin.

What do they share in common? O.K., time's up. They're all one-hit wonders, although the former governor of Alaska doesn't know it yet. Palin is too busy being on the road giving speeches, giving interviews, making apologies to BP, picking fights with the NAACP, collecting big fat checks from clueless Teabaggers and getting ready for her 2012 presidential campaign.

And the more you see of Palin, the worst she gets. Maybe she was a big turd in a small pond when she was governor of a tiny one-moose town in Alaska, but this is a job way above her pay grade, and she can't do it, folks. Remember, Palin called Hillary Clinton a "whiner", but the former First Lady didn't act as though every news reporter with a microphone was a bomb-carrying terrorist.

Here comes the new Stupid, same as the old Stupid.

Sarah Palin also seems to be unaware that she has a big problem. If you're addicted to something, you forget the difference between good ideas and bad ideas. A coke head will do a line before an important job interview. A gin-soaked father of two will drive his kids to the liquor store. A gambler three months behind on his rent will buy a hundred dollars worth of scratch tickets. Palin? The far-right, moose-hunting Diva of the GOP can't give up the spotlight.

("I just can't quit you," Palin whispers lovingly to herself, watching a YouTube video of her speech at the RNC.)

Because Palin stubbornly refuses to go to detox, Mrs. Barracuda is suffering ugly withdrawal symptoms. Think of it as a doomed remake of "The Lost Weekend", except she's seeing visions of the White House instead of pink elephants. Palin probably thinks that she's outgrown Alaska, so her Farewell Tour is, most likely, going to last for a couple of months while she aggressively markets both the Republican party and herself.

But, paradoxically enough, as Palin dutifully spoke of solidarity, loyalty, and a "return to fundamental conversative values", I think she had the opposite effect.

When it came to ideological unity and discipline, only the Borg were better at it than the Republicans. Nobody ever stepped out of line, or expressed a dissenting voice. Old-time mobsters preaching the gospel of omerta, would have smiled in cold approval. However, the woman who they had counted on to be their next Reagan turned into a polarizing catalyst that blew up in their faces. Watching the wreckage of the Republican party lately is like watching a bunch of suicide bombers in a junkyard car arguing over who gets to drive.

Remember how scornful the right-wing pundits were of the "reality-based" community? Well, ignoring reality is just as fatal as jumping out of a skyscraper pretending the law of gravity doesn't exist. Something is gonna go Splat! As long as some Republicans keep stubbornly ignoring why they lost, they're going to keep jumping out of that window. As the old saying goes, "Denial isn't just a river in Egypt."

When you have a few "moderate" Republicans attempting to bring in women and people of color into the "big tent" on one side, and on the other side you have bigoted fundamentalist crazies that want to burn the tent down, you're not going to find a compromise that works. Palin was the best thing that ever happened to the Democrats.

Run, Sarah, run.

So if Sarah "One-Hit Wonder" Palin wants the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, I say good luck to her. I have a feeling people are going to get sick and tired of hearing the same old song for the next two years.