Appearing at CPAC last weekend, Sarah Palin reinforced her claim to the title, “village idiot of American politics.” Okay, okay; you may be right. Word for word that might not be completely fair. After all, Palin’s actual resume in politics is remarkably thin and certainly Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Sanctorum, and Herman Cain (to name just a few) are strongly competitive. So let’s make two key deletions. Remove “political” and the “n” from “American.” There you have it. A title that fits Palin like $500 shoes purchased with RNC money.
In her role as governor/failed vice presidential candidate Palin conducted a turkey pardoning at a slaughterhouse while less lucky birds were being killed on camera ten feet behind her. She has always possessed a masterful sense of unintended self parody which was fully on display at CPAC. For starters, there’s that idiotic smirk that crossed her face each time she slurped from the “big gulp” soda cup she brought on stage. Yeah, we get it. It’s a swipe at New York Mayor Bloomberg’s ill-advised attempt to control the size of soft drink portions. Bloomberg deserved to be slammed but it’s kinda old news and has been done and redone by actual comedians in bits that were actually funny. Instead of saying anything witty, Palin relied on the prop alone. Which isn’t funny by itself. But it was the expression on her face that toped this cake. Dumbness mixed with smugness and satisfaction. All in the context of a nothing burger joke. The whole thing came off as self parody without any wit or self awareness. Or intent.
“We don’t have leadership coming out of Washington, we have reality television.” Good enough as a one liner, though not from the only former governor in U.S. history to have starred on her own reality show. Two seasons, with a third show pitched. Moronic enough for you? Wait, there’s more: “Leaders reach across political differences, campaigners double down on those differences. Leaders seek to bring Americans together to confront our challenges, and campaigners seek to divide and to conquer…” Gee Sarah, see anyone in the mirror? Nope? Didn’t think so.
Palin’s most memorable idiotic moment came when she read the obligatory President Obama/teleprompter joke. Operative word “read,” No kidding. Without so much as an attempt to pretend she was doing otherwise, Palin obviously read the teleprompter joke as well as the entirety of her speech from, you guessed it, a teleprompter.
Case rested.
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