10th Avenue — © Brian Rose
After a year and a half of exposure to this virulently toxic presence, the question on the table is: In our lifetime, has there ever been a worse human being in American politics than Sarah Palin? For all the morons and criminals and bigots we’ve been subjected to, has there been anyone else who has combined all of the fetid qualities — the proud ignorance, the sadistic viciousness, the shameless hypocrisy, the arrogant laziness, the congenital dishonesty, the unctuous sanctimony, the bilious resentment, and whichever others I’m forgetting for the moment — that this morals-free harridan so relentlessly displays? (Not to mention that atonal bray with which she communicates it all.)
As I was telling my wife, Palin made it fashionable to be stupid in public. We all knew there were a lot of stupid people out there but had no idea so many would be proud of their stupidity.
I still remember vividly the first moment I saw and heard her, when McCain introduced Palin as his running mate. She strode to the microphone with a profoundly smug sense of entitlement and began spouting the appalling gibberish we've become all too familiar with. The horror of that moment remains as she commands an army of zombies marching across the political landscape.