i have demured, time and time again, from entering political discussion and worn my "i don't do politics" button of ignorance for quite awhile.  i get uncomfortable in this arena and more often than not would rather take a nail gun to my eye than act as audience to any wanna-be politico's over-enthusiasitc, spit-filled rant on just about anything.

sarah palin has changed all of this.

no,   i don't want to state the obvious about how we need change and how the past 8 years in the white house can euphemistically be called a clusterfuck.  i don't even want to shout obama's name from the rooftops or extol the virtues of the democratic party.

i just want to hate sarah palin.  and keep hating sarah palin.  and then hate sarah palin some more.

and it's so god damn easy.

it's laughable, really.  SHE'S laughable.  a total joke -as much so as george W- but she takes herself SO SERIOUSLY.  bush knows he's a dummy - really, i think at this point he's kind of in on that joke.  but palin, this trifling, ludicrous hockey mom on 'roids, thinks she can BS her way through serious questions and has NO FUCKING IDEA what she's talking about.  she's not humble, she's not deserving, she's not educated about the things that comprise the current political landscape outside the state of alaska.

robert schlesinger gets it right about 98 times more eloquently than i do over at the US news & world report.

but therein is a victory.  did you catch that?  did you observe that odd little detail, that, i, me, petunia the adament political abstainer, am reading US news & world report's website just to feed my cracked-out, pathological disdain and loathing for this horrific, poofy-up-do'ed, bespectacled day-to-night barbie wannabe CUNT?

sarah palin, you make me care.

Everyone I speak to is panicked. No one expected the Republicans to re-hire Karl Rove and run plays straight from his book. Leonard links to TPM:

What can we do? We've got a dangerously reckless contender for the presidency and a vice presidential candidate who distinguished her self by abuse of office even on the comparatively small political stage of Alaska. They've both embraced a level of dishonesty that disqualifies them for high office. Democrats owe it to the country to make clear who these people are. No apologies or excuses. If Democrats can say at the end of this campaign that they made clear exactly how and why these two are unfit for high office they can be satisfied they served their country.

This is about what I came up with laying in bed last night. It's really depressing; McCain is turning this from a race about issues and intelligence to a TMZ paparazzi race.

Here are a couple more links for you, pointing out what should be semi-obvious points, if the media was actually speaking out instead of buying in:

• Let's say McCain wasn't lying about earmarks. They are still only 1% of the budget. Even if he was intent on slashing them, it can hardly be called "change." And let's be honest — no one expects the president to be able to change this.
• The rest of the world supports Obama.
• A chart that shows how McCains tax plan works versus Obama's. If you make more than 100,000, McCain will cut your taxes. Boy, that helps most people!
• Still unsure? Plug in your details and find out exactly how much you would save under Obama.
• The Palin interview is tonight. but it sounds like Gibson will softball her, which is absurd.
• And the ad the Republican's are running? The one citing Factcheck? Yeah, Factcheck says McCain is lying and using their information in a "less than honest" way. Classy, McCain.
• Two awesome, awesome Daily Show clips: the first showing how hypocritical the Republicans are in terms of the sexism complaints; the second on how "original" McCain's nomination speech was.
• Oh and Fox News is now claiming they never tried to tie Obama to Muslim anything. It is, of course, a lie. Do they really believe that no one has tapes of this stuff? Or a memory?

More soon, I'm sure.

Because now we see that eight years of dogmatic Republican insistence on "abstinence only" sex education really does work …