A reader writes:
I read your latest post about Palin's authenticity with interest. And that little alarm bell that always goes off in my head.
Andrew, whether the Republican party realizes it or not - she is their test. It is with Palin and her political aspirations that we are going to find out whether the tottering GOP is merely desperate, or depraved.
Palin is who she is. She's a deeply disturbed creature and she's spent her whole life banking on her looks and her chutzpah to see her through. She never bothered to excel because she figured, and was rewarded for, faking it. If she can appear to be something and people buy it (literally and figuratively) then she figures that's sufficient. Even worthy of being handed the controls for the United States of America and, for that matter, the world entire. That's how deranged she is.
But the GOP, while they may be a sordid lot these days, drunk on desperation, are not all stupid. Many of them are very bright, just trapped.
And they know that the prospect of Sarah Palin in power is horrifying. And at any point they could have, and still could, bring to a halt her delusions of grandeur, for that's what's the Republicans are known for. An entire machine whose modus operandi is dismantling people and careers. That's true and they actually are rather proud of it. So don't tell me that with all the material she's given them from associations with secessionists, to whacked out religious practices, to her questionable ethics, personal and family scandals and her abject stupidity that they can't put a stop to the lunging aspirations of this con artist from Mayberry, Alaska.
However, should they decide to run her for office that is how America will know, beyond doubt, that the Republicans are no longer a political party, but a mob and a threat to this country. Romney is a cheese and an opportunist but he's somehow almost quaint in his old hack political posturing. Pawlenty is old school boring. The list goes on. None a sign of a party that's gone completely to hell. We've see their type before and sometimes they win and sometimes not. But a Palin is a once in a generation joke, and a really bad one, that the Republicans could take too far. I wonder what they'll do.
She is their litmus test.
I think they've already flunked it, and fear she is the next nominee by default.