A Teaching Moment

Regarding Sarah Palin, we have all seen and read much. Yes she has become an enormous distraction, but this is a teaching moment for the American people.

We have been here before, eight years ago, and this time one can only hope (please, please God have mercy on your people) that we have learned something in the intervening period of pure misery. Why do we still find this all so shocking?!?

Someone at DKos parses the curious tale of how Sarah Palin reacted when John McCain asked her to be his VP.

This is something I can't let pass--not without taking notice. Sarah Palin has just made her most blatant lie yet. It's one that the average television viewer can catch. And most tellingly, it's a lie that exposes not just mendacity, but a compulsion to lie.

In a transparent attempt to shore up her feminist appeal, she's changed her story on how she accepted the offer to run for vice-president.

Which one is it, Sarah? The problem with lying isn't so much putting the lies out there. It's in sticking to them.

She has now given two completely different answers to explain/describe her reaction to the VP nod. In the one to Gibson, she bragged about not even blinking. Now she says she consulted with her family and they even voted. Oh sure. How democratic is that?

So which one is it? What has happened here?

Her answer to Charlie Gibson was the real answer. She is in all likelihood a psychopath, as I wrote here. I noticed that Charlie also said, in asking his question, that it might belie some hubris for her to accept the job, but she glided right past that little remark and nobody else seems to have mentioned it either. There's a great deal of focus on her not knowing about the Bush Doctrine, and so forth. Be that as it may. But from a purely emotional level, her performance made it completely plain -- if you have eyes to see -- that she is ruthless and cutthroat, completely devoid of introspection or even a tiny shred of humility. This is not a nice person. I don't care what she looks like on the outside.

Psychopaths do not experience normal human emotions, and they try to fake it. But sometimes they just get it wrong. Her no blinking answer was a clashing gong to many thinking, feeling Americans; and now she has to redo that answer by having a new answer, the answer that a normal human would have. The fact that it contradicts her previous answer is of no concern to her. You have to understand that's how these people operate. Haven't we seen this over and over again with Bush/Cheney and the GOP? Reality is what they say it is. They actually believe that. They do not understand why we get all hung up on consistency and principles because they have no principles.

As for the comparisons to Cheney, I think they are accurate and justified. The main difference being that Cheney has been inside Washington for what, 30 years?, giving him plenty of time to learn how to spin his lies. Also, he spends so much time behind the scenes where he doesn't have to bother with all this pesky PR stuff. Sarah is a neophyte in comparison, but that does not mean that she is any less despicable. And if we're stupid enough to find out, well heaven help us.

Bonus: Additional information from Alaska about her ruthless behavior toward Monegan.