A Final Word on Sarah Palin... For Now

The firestorm over my posting of Sarah Palin adult film titles baffles me on several counts. First there's the assertion that I am some raving liberal out to destroy the name of Sarah Palin. Nonsense! As a registered independent I was unable to even vote in the primaries.

More to the point I have always held that politicians are a separate class of citizens who should be judged by a special standard: guilty until proven innocent. Not only should they be asked questions constantly (and until those questions are answered, we should assume the worst), but they should be mocked, ridiculed, and run through a cross-country spanking machine. Don't worry, these guys -- and gal -- are tough.

I remember during the 1992 election listening to two close friends talk about how they teared up during a Bill Clinton campaign speech. I nearly vomited -- not because I didn't like Bill Clinton (I'd barely formed an opinion at that point), but because the last thing voters need is to surrender to hyper emotionalism when they are casting a vote. It's an election, not an Andrea Bocelli concert or religious revival meeting.

We should remain skeptical of all politicians, especially those we vote into office. Guilty until proven innocent. And the best of them should be judged innocent only after they cede power. (Note to Rick Davis: "Deference" is for one's mother and pastor, not for a Vice Presidential candidate.)

On this score the 20-month-long presidential campaign -- including 30+ debates and forums -- has been useful for healthily skeptical voters and the mockers who love them. Readers of this blog know that I have mocked Obama as wispy and all too often vague. And I'm even a little embarrassed to remind readers that I objectified him in triple-x fashion during a video last year. (Not for the faint of heart.) And I very early on warned that commentators' and comedians' reluctance to make fun of him would hurt him in the end.

But having run the gauntlet that he has - again, 20 continuous months of answering questions - I am impressed by his smarts and his steadiness. And yes, his speechmaking. (President Bush did his best to bully our language to a pulp, but the Bully Pulpit is not so easily defeated.)

Likewise in these pages I've mocked McCain as dangerously temperamental and ideologically rudderless. But as far back as September '07 -- when the conservatives who suddenly love him were cursing his name -- I refused to count him out. (Hyperlinks don't lie.) And I admired him for his own refusal to demagogue the issue of immigration, when the easiest thing for him to do would have been to throw hardworking Mexicans under the 1950s Bluebird bus.

Yes, I've made fun of him for his age. (Is Palin a running mate or home health aide?) But the team here also had fun showing that a man his age could easily tangle with a whippersnapper.

Enter Palin. It's not her fault that she only now set foot on the national stage. But now that's she's here - and awfully close to a lot of power over all of us - she's due for a compressed period of intense hazing. (She might also want to answer some more questions. It's sort of traditional for candidates.) Sarah Palin's a politician -- not your sister and not a saint. Oh, and to the guy who challenged me to a duel for offending her honor: she's not a damsel in distress, either, and you're not her Dudley Do-Rightwinger. So stop fantasizing. I assure you, she's too busy meeting with lawyers to read any of this.

Finally, friends, how puritanical are we? It's not like we put Palin's head on a naked body. We didn't even use all our titles. (I can only imagine some of the reactions to Backdoor to Russia!)

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On another not-quite-unrelated note: A lot of Obama-bashers tend to focus on his, um, skin color. Specifically they like to subtly point out that he is HALF-BLACK (in much the same way that they continue to insist he is MUSLIM).

The emphasis on his being HALF-BLACK leads me to one conclusion: too many of today's racists are pessimists. And there's nothing worse than a grumpy racist!

I ask you, frowning racist, why look at the candidate HALF-BLACK when you can look at the same candidate HALF-WHITE? So chin up. Things are lighter than you think!!