The scariest thing about Sarah Palin

Via jwz, an absolutely stunner of a rant by Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi: "The scariest thing about Sarah Palin isn't how unqualified she is - it's what her candidacy says about America".

He's basically pointing out Palin's candidacy as a milestone on the road to the brainless consumerist bottom-of-the-barrel reality we may be headed for. E.g., the one hilariously depicted in the movie Idiocracy (which you may have read about before).

It's hard to pick out the best bits to quote, because the whole thing is so good. But here goes.

[Watching] Palin's speech, I had no doubt that I was witnessing a historic, iconic performance. The candidate sauntered to the lectern with the assurance of a sleepwalker - and immediately launched into a symphony of snorting and sneering remarks, taking time out in between the superior invective to present herself as just a humble gal with a beefcake husband and a brood of healthy, combat-ready spawn who just happened to be the innocent targets of a communist and probably also homosexual media conspiracy. It was a virtuoso performance. She appeared to be completely without shame and utterly full of shit, awing a room full of hardened reporters with her sickly sweet line about the high-school-flame-turned-hubby who, "five children later" is "still my guy." It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag.

... We're used to seeing such blatant cultural caricaturing in our politicians. But Sarah Palin is something new. She's all caricature. As the candidate of a party whose positions on individual issues are poll losers almost across the board, her shtick is not even designed to sell a line of policies. It's just designed to sell her. . . . The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that huge chunks of American voters no longer even demand that their candidates actually have policy positions; they simply consume them as media entertainment, rooting for or against them according to the reflexive prejudices of their demographic, as they would for reality-show contestants or sitcom characters.

... The truly disgusting thing about Sarah Palin isn't that she's totally unqualified, or a religious zealot, or married to a secessionist, or unable to educate her own daughter about sex, or a fake conservative who raised taxes and horked up earmark millions every chance she got. No, the most disgusting thing about her is what she says about us: that you can ram us in the ass for eight solid years, and we'll not only thank you for your trouble, we'll sign you up for eight more years, if only you promise to stroke us in the right spot for a few hours around election time.

P.S. On a lighter note, the Onion knows fish in a barrel when they see 'em: "Palin Brushing Up On Foreign Policy At Epcot".