In an amazing act of self-abnegation, my hero Charles P Pierce attended CPAC, that gathering of the most fearful and hateful who come to be fed the most fear-based and hated-stewed bilge from the depths of what some still consider an actual political party. Mitch "I'm not a turtle" McConnell showed up brandishing a musket and then refused to say if he actually owns a gun. Michael Medved declared that no state has banned gay marriage, ever. Ben Carson whined that liberals had lied about his homophobic statements and apocalyptic claims. On and on they went, Santorum and Gingrich and Paul R and R Paul, vying for the title of most inflammatory, least factual, most scary. Sarah Palin wound it up. Here's, in part, how Charlie describes that most appropriately timed cap to the crime:
... McCain should pay a heavy price for unleashing this ignorant, two-wheeled bilewagon on the country's politics. If you think she's a legitimate political leader, you're an idiot and a sucker and I feel sorry for you....
...In 2008, we should remember, she wasn't sure how many Koreas there were, thought Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, and was unclear whether or not Africa was a country. ...
A friend bailed on the speech, making the very plausible case that Palin is simply another political celebrity freakshow, like Donald Trump. I can see the point there but, with Palin, and watching the hysterical reception her puerile screed received, there is something more serious going on. She is the living representation of the infantilization of American politics, a poisonous Grimm Sister telling toxic fairy tales to audiences drunk on fear, and hate and nonsense. She respects no standards but her own. She is in perpetual tantrum, railing against her betters, which is practically everyone, and volunteering for the job of avatar to the country's reckless vandal of a political Id. It was the address of a malignant child delivered to an audience of malignant children. If you applauded, you're an idiot and I feel sorry for you.Oh how I wish I could write like he does. And oh how inexplicable it is that anyone able to think, even if it happens to be his job, could attend, without brain damage, that sad cesspool of the permanently aggrieved who long for an America that never existed and, most surely, never will.
[Image source] (And isn't it amazing that googling "cherry on top of turd" actually comes up with an image?)
