And we thought Sarah Palin was dumb

Apparently, 37% of Americans can’t locate America on the map. Particularly  disappointing is the fact that the map our geographically-challenged citizens couldn’t find America on was a map of…well…America. Happily, even though the Department of Education is a little chagrined by this recent Gallup survey, one part of our government sees it as wonderful news:

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security sees the Gallup/Harris poll results as a blessing in disguise. According to Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation would be better off if these numbers skewed even higher.

“Personally, I believe if fewer people in this world could spot America on a map, we’d have a much better chance of avoiding national tragedies like 9/11,” said Chertoff. “You can’t attack a country you can’t find.”

Every cloud has a silver lining. Clouds, you know, the puffy white things above your head.

Thanksgiving in Real America

Looking for something to be thankful for?  This one is a stretch.

Sarah Palin: the Book

Cinderella got a night on the town, a new wardrobe and a chance to hang out with movers and shakers. But then, at the untimely stroke of midnight, her life turned back into a pumpkin. Apparently, Sarah Palin’s fairy tale adventures come with a happier ending. $11 million dollars happier. Sarah has signed her big-buck-big-book deal. A book to nowhere. After all, do her diehard fans even read?

Eating its young

Interesting development. The liberal blogosphere which sullied Sarah Palin, her credentials, her motherhood and her intelligence, is now defending her honor. It’s amazing how winning an election can produce such magnamity. And losing? I’ll let Ellen Goodman describe it:

Have you ever seen a transformation this fast? In barely two months, the Barracuda became the Scapegoat. Think of it as evolution on steroids.

In September, Sarah Palin, the little-known governor of Alaska, was hailed as the great female hope of the Republican Party. Double the maverick, double the fun. John McCain called her “the most marvelous running mate in the history of this nation.” Pro-life conservatives were “ecstatic,” and she was a “hottie” to boot.

But after a handful of disastrous interviews, after polls showing she was a drag on the ticket, and after, of course, losing the election, McCain staffers began dropping little poison pellets all over the media. Sarah was a “diva.” She was a Wasilla hillbilly “looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast.” She was a “wacko” who couldn’t tell the French president from a Canadian radio prankster.

Did they actually think that Gov. Palin would go quietly into that good Arctic night?

Decrypting Sarah

Sarah Palin has a syntax problem, a sentence problem and a problem talking before she knows what she is talking about. But a clever, young conservative has actually figured out how to decrypt her endless yammering:

I have concluded that the problem that so many people have in understand what Palin is saying is that we make the mistake of assuming that all of the words have some reason for being there. What we have to do instead is decrypt her message by filtering out all of the confusing chatter that keeps her statements encoded and difficult to follow. Let’s take the first sentence, and identify the essential elements in bold:

Sitting here in these chairs that I’m going to be proposing but in working with these governors who again on the front lines are forced to and it’s our privileged obligation to find solutions to the challenges facing our own states every day being held accountable, not being just one of many just casting votes or voting present every once in a while, we don’t get away with that.

See? If you just cut out about 60% of what she says, it hangs together nicely.

Chill, baby, chill

Sarah Palin was beating that Bill Ayers drum again on CNN. Can we just give her an account at Neiman’s and send her on her way?

The patron saint of would-be assassins

The Secret Service is linking a spike in death threats against the President elect to the inflamatory rhetoric of Sarah Palin’s stump speeches. Gosh-golly, betcha didn’t know you were a murderous hate monger, huh Gov?

Meet the Jerk

Sarah Palin’s unnamed critic comes out of the closet. He is McCain campaign’s foreign policy advisor, Martin Eisenstadt. He shares more dirt on the shortcomings of the former GOP Veep candidate:

As you know, I was one of the foreign policy advisers on the McCain campaign who worked with Randy Scheunemann to help prep Sarah on her debate with Joe Biden. Did we outright give her a geography quiz when we started the prep? No, of course not. But yes, in the context of the prep, it slowly became apparent that her grasp of basic geo-political knowledge had major gaps. Could she have passed a multiple choice test about South Africa or NAFTA. Probably. But it was clear that she simply didn’t have the ease of knowledge that we come to expect from a major party political candidate. Other slights came up, too: Not knowing the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas. Or the difference between the Shiites and Suni. Or when it came to international terrorist organizations, knowing that the IRA was in Northern Ireland, and ETA in Spain.

A losing coalition

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Running the numbers on the election, it appears that evangelicals supported the McCain-Palin ticket in greater numbers than they did Bush-Cheney  four years ago. Considering that McCain started the primary season with little support among Religious Right honchos like James Dobson and Pat Robertson, this was quite a feat. Considering he lost the election, this was no great accomplishment. The GOP tent is shrinking. Look at Proposition 8. It passed in the blue state that handed Obama the victory. That didn’t happen without those who voted for Obama also voting against gay marriage. This year, conservative values and voting for Obama was not mutually exclusive. The GOP has there work cut out for them.

You’ve been Palinized

Kathleen Parker describes the new Palin-inspired conservative movement where the erudite are suspect and the Joe the Plumbers of the world are invited to opine on foreign policy.

Palin covered her inadequacies with folksy charm and by drumming up a
class war, turning her audiences not just against elites but against
the party’s own educated members. The movement created by that
superelite, but never elitist, William F. Buckley Jr. was handed over
to Joe Six-Pack. Know-nothingness was no longer a stigma, but a badge
of honor.

The new “elite gotcha media”

Well, it looks like FOX News has moved on from making the Democrats look bad. Now they are making the Republicans look bad. Clearly, these guys are just mean.

The Global Presidency

It was like the millennial New Year. Dancing in the streets. Raising the roof. Tears. Cheers. And that was just Kenya. So I thought it appropriate to give My Apologies presidential political correspondent, Governor Sarah Palin, a moment to discuss the global aspects of this Obama victory:

“You betcha! Gosh-golly, where do I begin? The world is a pretty big place. There’s the lower 48 and Wasilla…and of course Real America. Can I look at a map? Well, you know, the whole darn country of Africa is really excited about this Obama guy. I mean…Continent of Africa … why can’t I remember that geography stuff?…Africa and all its states, like Kenya and Libertaria. And that guy Sarkozy in France…he issued a statement…you know, the real one…not that guy in Canada, the prankster. Boy, that elite, gotcha comedian totally fooled me!!! You know he had that whole French accent and all. Anyway, you know all the countries and those continent things are all real excited…But that Vladmir Putin reared his ugly head…yeah, you betcha…Gosh, saw that one from my front door…But I’ll be keeping an eye on him, don’t you worry. Not to mention that Akmood-the-Dinnerjacket guy. That one gives me the willies. Yup, pretty monumental election…all those purple thumbs…Listen, I’ve got a humdinger of a concession speech they never let me give…maybe on your blog someday…”

Fair and Balanced

With Sarah Palin safely back in Alaska and John McCain soundly defeated, even FOX News is talking about what a first-rate diva and second-rate dunce the Governor of Alaska turned out to be.

Palin 2012

Same track. Different trainwreck.