Palin Booed in Indiana

Huffington Post:

Unhappy fans of Sarah Palin went rogue on the Alaska Republican during her book tour stop in Noblesville, Indiana on Thursday.

The local Borders outlet had handed out 1,000 wristbands to book purchasers; the wristbands were supposed to procure fans Palin's signature on their hardback copies of "Going Rogue." But several dozen people who had been promised signatures were turned away empty-handed after waiting hours in poor weather, a local news outlet, the Indy Channel, reported.

"We gave up our entire workday, stayed in the cold, my kids were crying," one man was quoted saying. "They went home with my wife. She was out here in the freezing cold all day. I feel like I don't want to support Sarah."

On one hand, you have to feel both sorry for the people standing out in the cold and rain waiting to get Palin's scrawl on their books; on the other, it inspires (in me, at least) contempt for their willful ignorance. Did they really think that Palin gave a damn about them? Have they listened to anything other than Faux News reports on her in the last year?

Of course they haven't, that's why they were in line in the rain waiting for her to sign her books. These were the hardcore wingnuts, ready to defend to the death their heroine, and their right to be stupid. The fact that the only truths in her book are that her name is Sarah, she was once the governor of Alaska, and she ran for Vice President, the fact that almost everything else in the book has been proven to be a lie, matters not to them. "She's one of us!", they proclaim.

Now for me, anyone who couldn't even name a book, magazine, or website that they read daily to stay informed isn't smart enough to be elected dog catcher, much less Vice President. But then again, I live in the reality-based community. And if you think that being so ignorant that you admit you don't know the duties of the job you're seeking, so stupid that you're repeatedly caught in lies about easily-checked facts, and if you shoot wolves from a helicopter; if all that makes you qualified, in some tiny minds, to be president, then I don't want you anywhere near the levers of power, and I repeat my wish that the Founding Fathers had made intelligence--and not age, race, or gender--the prime qualification for the right to vote.

So, Rupert Murdoch, please give this woman a talk show, and let the inevitable forces of history consign her to its gutters.