The Sarah Palin farce was on full display last Friday, and more commentators are willing to speak the simple truth that she’s not suited for national office. Eugene Robinson sums it up nicely.
What can you say about a public official who ridicules those who would take the “quitter’s way out” — as she faces reporters to announce that she’s quitting? A governor who claims that “the worthless, easy path” would be to serve out the remaining 18 months of her term? An ambitious politician who says that “life is too short” to worry about, you know, boring things such as responsibility or duty?
You can say that all of us who ever took Sarah Palin seriously — or pretended to take her seriously — should be deeply ashamed. And you can say that John McCain should publicly apologize for putting the nation he loves at risk by choosing Palin as his running mate. Imagining Palin within a heartbeat of the presidency should be enough to make even die-hard Republicans shudder.
The reasons she gave for stepping down are not just contrived or implausible but literally nonsensical. She can most effectively serve the people of Alaska by ceasing to exercise the powers of chief executive? She worries that as a lame duck she would somehow be compelled to waste taxpayer money on useless junkets? In her “Don’t Cry For Me, Alaska” news conference announcing her departure, the folksy non sequiturs — “Only dead fish go with the flow” — were like nuggets of Cartesian logic amid a tub of mush.
But I’m stating the obvious. The thing is, Palin’s unsuitability for high public office has been obvious all along. Tina Fey got it right; the rest of us were far too reluctant to state plainly that the emperor, or empress, has no clothes.
Many of us in the blogosphere called this one early. It was obvious after her first two interviews that Sarah Palin was a joke as a vice presidential candidate. In many ways it wasn’t her fault. John McCain made the selection.
The pundits on television had to be more restrained, as Palin and the McCain campaign were “all in” playing the victim card.
