How’s that other face doin’, Ms. Palin?

Dear Sarah,

This is a rant, but since you appear to be about as interested a reader as our beloved 43rd president, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter what I say – you’re busy readin’ all those newspapers and magazines that were in front of you over all these years.

But anyhow, I’m going to say my piece here.

We get it, already. You see yourself as the future of the country. Forgive me if I don’t agree, but what is clear is that you’ll say anything to keep yourself in the spotlight. You can read a good speech, sure, but so can I. Hey, *me* in 2012!

Seriously, though… Given the stupid, awful things you said during the campaign, I’m not inclined to believe you’d be honored to work with Obama or that you’re now denouncing extreme partisanship, because um… two weeks ago, you didn’t feel that way about either. You were much more interested in implying he was a socialist/terrorist/n00b who was going to send the country into the hole and stirring up as much hatred as possible in the more extreme segments of our society.

And now you just keep talking, and talking, and talking. I have to tell you – your voice is bloody annoying, and as someone from the upper Midwest, that’s sayin’ somethin’.

Today it was about Joe the Plumber (enough of this guy already – his 15 minutes are so over), and Tito the Builder, and whatever, last week it was at least three different explanations of your clothing issues, and after saying you wouldn’t define yourself as a feminist, now you’ve decided you are one. And after hinting at 2012 with the subtlety of a brick for days, now you’re saying you’re not thinking about 2012, you’re concentrating on 2010 for the good of your party, blah blah blah.

Frankly, Sarah, we know exactly what you’re concentrating on. It’s not the nation, it’s not Alaska, it’s probably not your family, and it’s certainly not God. It’s Sarah Freaking Palin, America’s new Queen of Hubris.

I’m sorry, Ms. Palin, but I’m just getting really tired of you opening your mouth and the elite liberal media who seems to think it’s newsworthy.

Look, you may have learned from Senator McCain, a guy I used to kind of like and respect about eight years ago, that the way to get ahead in the world is to say what you think people want to hear, even if you say four things on the same day which are absolutely mutually exclusive. But I promise you, that’s not how it works. As you may recall, it was not a winning strategy this year. That’s probably not going to change.

Now, I can hear Dems saying, “Great, you should run in 2012, Sarah – that’ll almost guarantee that we stay in office.” And it should. Anyone who is as clueless as you were during the Couric interview alone has no business governing anything beyond the confines of her own house (regardless of whether or not she can see Russia from it). You’ve already risen to the level of your own incompetence, and should you spend the next few years “doing your homework”, as the press puts it, so that you can run, you will scare me no less than you do now. The products of ambition don’t cure a lack of intellectual curiosity or a closed mind.

But we remember – the Republicans have been really good at getting real bozos into office. We’re not even rid of the last one, and you make him look like a Rhodes scholar (and, what’s scarier, you both make Ronnie look like a Nobel laureate, which should scare the crap out of everyone). You do represent a particular extreme segment of the population who wants to continue the culture war forever and forever (and is probably waiting for the rapture right now), and those people have been hanging out on the fringes of power for at least thirty years now.

The religious right isn’t going to give up that easily, and discounting them is a dangerous thing. That’s what you’re counting on, Ms. Palin. And I hope it doesn’t work.

Quite frankly, as a woman, as a thinking-person, and as a human being, it makes my skin crawl every time you open your mouth.

Could you please not just accept that you’ve risen about as high as you’ve any right to and be grateful for what you’ve had? My above fears of the religious right notwithstanding, if you don’t realize that the election did not go well for McCain in large part because of you and that you managed to look like a complete idiot on the world stage completely without the use of gotcha questions, I just hope (to borrow your analogy) God can help you see those big “Do Not Enter” signs on the locked and barred doors of national politics soon.

I’m not against women in politics at all – I’m against you in politics.

And as an aside, what were the voters of Alaska thinking?

Sarah Palin, I wish you no ill, but please go away. Right now. Or perhaps even yesterday.

Regards,

Me