Sarah Palin Is Not Welcome In Lake Wobegon

“No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”-- Henry Louis Mencken

Garrison Keillor sees right through Sarah Palin:

It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate through two months of chaperoned campaigning, but the truth emerges: The lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about. The American people have an ear for B.S. They can tell when someone’s mouth is moving and the clutch is not engaged. When she said, “One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let’s commit ourselves just every day, American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars,” people smelled gas.

Some Republicans adore her because they are pranksters at heart and love the consternation of grown-ups. The ne’er-do-well son of the old Republican family as president, the idea that you increase government revenue by cutting taxes, the idea that you cut social services and thereby drive the needy into the middle class, the idea that you overthrow a dictator with a show of force and achieve democracy at no cost to yourself — one stink bomb after another, and now Gov. Palin.

She is a chatty sportscaster who lacks the guile to conceal her vacuity, and she was Mr. McCain’s first major decision as nominee. This troubles independent voters, and now she is a major drag on his candidacy. She will get a nice book deal from Regnery and a new career making personal appearances for 40 grand a pop, and she’ll become a trivia question, “What politician claimed foreign-policy expertise based on being able to see Russia from her house?” And the rest of us will have to pull ourselves out of the swamp of Republican economics.

In the six weeks since she first burst onto the public stage, Palin has proven herself to be a pathological liar, unable to think on her feet, the anti-Hillary Clinton, and the very model of a totally corrupt and venal politician. Wayne Barrett's outstanding research into her murky background, in this week's Village Voice, gives us chapter and verse on Palin's longstanding pattern of rewarding herself and her friends at the public's expense, then lying about it. Even conservatives such as Christopher Hitchens and Kathleen Parker have had enough of her ignorance, incompetence, and lack of honesty.

Just this once, I do believe someone just might go broke underestimating the stupidity of the American public...and lose a public office or two.