Mad Cow Disease

Just when we were starting to think that maybe we would get a brief respite from our favorite idiot savant, suddenly there's a barrage of Stupid Shit Sarah Said "news" stories. Islamofascistsocialistcommieneegrow Obammy is responsible for anything and everything, from illegal immigrants to the heartbreak of psoriasis. Also, he wants to take away your guns, the easier to force everyone to get abortions, one supposes.

Oh, and speaking of abortions, while Miss Thang is on high alert for all the choices Obammy and Pelosi and Reid and the rest of the Gestapo wish to take from you, fortunately Saint Sarah has taken the trouble to establish the "right" reproductive choice for all women. Four legs good, two legs better and all.

And the only thing we've learned from a rapidly worsening catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is that we're not drilling enough. It is truly a technological marvel, to be able to drill five miles down at the bottom of a large body of water; less impressive is that the technology has far outdistanced the ability to contain problems and accidents. And nowhere is the notion of conservation, the formerly Christian idea that waste is a sin, even mentioned. Drill baby drill. No matter what is destroyed, or who dies in the process.

Since Palin is -- you guessed it -- having another book cobbled together for her to slap her name on, this is all just another piece of what is becoming an endless publicity tour. The only interesting part of all this is whether the Republican Party seriously thinks she is viable (or even if she wants to run) in 2012, even though right now she would lose in her home state.

The fact of the matter is that the loose, sloppy alliance of Palin and the teabaggers -- both creations of the party and its lobbyists -- threaten to undermine any claims to moderation or legitimacy the Republicans might still have clung to.

Then there's Palin. She poses absolutely no threat to Obama's solid or lukewarm Democratic base. The mere mention of her as a possible presidential candidate is more than enough to terrorize disappointed liberal Democrats out of their Obama inertia. The real damage that she can do will be to further confuse, rile up, and split Republicans. Polls show that while voters in general say Palin's not presidential timber, a huge minority of Republicans say that she is. This could translate into a stock of disgruntled, frustrated voters who would be sorely tempted to push, prod and hector the GOP to give Palin her due as a possible presidential candidate. This kind of talk will propel even more independents away from the GOP.

Palin can talk all day about "mama grizzlies" ousting Democrats from power in November and beyond. But the stark political reality is that so far the only ones who have been threatened or devoured wear the GOP tag. This wasn't in the GOP mainstream's script for Palin and the Tea Party.

True dat. Notice how quickly they stopped crowing about Scott Brown, once he turned out to be a bit more moderate than they'd presumed. This is a crowd with truly dangerous levels of delusionary projection; they automatically assume that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. It doesn't occur to them that perhaps Brown sensed a unique opportunity in a miserable, presumptuous opponent and bitter political and economic winds. He tacked his sail correctly and squeaked in, simple as that.

It's amazing and appalling how the most incoherent, cognitively dissonant political players have managed to suck so much of the oxygen out of the room, from admirers and detractors alike. Enabled by a corporate media that has a vested interest in keeping the proles addled and bamboozled, these bozos muster on, like locusts mindlessly destroying field after field.

Not sure exactly how much of the American political landscape, such as it is, needs to be destroyed just so Sarah Palin can peddle another ghost-written doorstop, but the pestilence is cutting an ever-wider swath. Seems like three possibilities are most likely: one, that this nonsense gains traction, and a bunch of yahoos take office in November; two, that some catalyzing event pushes an already unstable claque into violent action; three, that enough people come to their damned senses and start forcefully repudiating this nonsense.

The trick is whether or not we believe that the morons have been covering their lack of real numbers with sheer volume, or if enough people think that their disaffection for a broken political system should automatically translate into them joining with a "movement" that has no policy proposals, no leaders, no coherent manifesto.