Sarah Palin’s ‘Washington Post’ Essay: 694 Words of Love

Love for God anyways -- something less than love for everyone else. Today, the world rakes you over hot coals while cackling wildly as it gives the dimmest American her own op-ed piece in The Washington Post. It's the universe's biggest bird-flip to those who make some vague attempt at being decent, intelligent, compassionate, hard-working people. The fallen Alaskan governor takes some time out of her day of not-parenting to vault a few harpoons at the President's energy plan. Poignantly titled "The 'Cap And Tax' Dead End," Sarah Palin posits, "Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be: I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage." Fun fact! Would speaking this way of that dude who played with Slinkies in the White House have gotten past naysayers into a nightmare of terror and doom in the past? Who cares, because she has a point!

And that point is, “Prez Obama’s tha suck y’all, bitchez!” But more specifically, it’s a pointed attack on his energy regulation plan. Which if it were longer than 694 words, provided constructive arguments, and didn’t rest on creepy zealotry like “We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil,” or bitchery like “The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics,” could be worth the slice of web 2.0 on which it was reproduced. But it’s cute to see Palin’s brain cells burning on overdrive to come with 694 words of anything. Even if they’re some of the most inert to ever be contributed to the English language. It’s like watching a squirrel jump from one tree branch to another (before Palin inevitably guns it down).

But there’s also an ironic beauty in Palin’s piece. That she ultimately becomes the chattering class she admonishes at the essay’s outset by picking on Obama, liberals, and less directly, atheists. And while we could still rail on about how scary it is that someone let this woman write something for a national audience, let alone pilot the Alaskan state or almost actually become our vice president, let’s lift our spirits and play a game to think of nicer things. Take the bio blurb the Post tacks on at the end of Palin’s essay and determine which one of these things is simply not true: The writer, a Republican, is governor of Alaska.. If you remarked, “All of them!” you’re right! Please go and collect your prize now. And let us never speak this witch’s name again.