HOW to be smarter than Sarah Palin - Sarcasm, Schadenfreude, or simply a Question of Fact?

SARAH Palin by some accounts has not had all her prayers answered. Either that, or even though she is a committed Christian, she has never intoned, 'God protect me from my friends'. Quite a few months ago, the ex-Mayor of Wasilla, who is also ex-Governor of Alaska and ex-running-mate of the Republican Senator who lost to Barak Obama; the small-town Beauty Queen who was elected Miss Wasilla, came third in the Miss Alaska - 'The Beauty Queen who saved Alaska' - who was elected Miss Congeniality unleashed on herself, with the compliments of some of her Republican friends, an apparent reversal of fortune which some say probably began with that unfortunate incident involving the slaughter of a turkey in the background, while Sarah Palin stood on the podium. If it wasn't that, could it have been the pretend 'phone-call from the faux Frenchman pretending to be the President of his country? Whatever it was, Sarah Palin was on a roll in the worst possible way-downwards. She adopted the slogan Don't Retreat; Reload! shortly before the Tucson shooting and misused the expression, Blood Libel, to describe the reaction of some of her `political opponents, and indicated unsympathetic states- the Sarah Palin target list - by marking their location with crosshairs - the Sarah Palin Crosshairs Map.

MOST observers appear to be united in questioning her intelligence. But with her resumé, one thing is sure - Sarah Palin is not stupid! It's Complicated, but surely it reflects badly on American Ultra-Conservative values, and the political sophistication its electorate, if an individual whose personal and political presentation is later revealed to have been so thoroughly vacuous, could have secured the support of so many. apparently objective voters. What does it say about its System of Values and its Powers of Perception? Or was Abraham Lincoln speaking to us from beyond the grave?

'YOU can fool All the People some of the time, Some of the People All of the Time, but you can't fool All of the People All of the Time.

NICK Broomfield, the award-winning British documentary-maker filmed Sarah Palin..YOU BETCHA! for Channel 4. Talk of Flying Monkees and rogue web-sites aside (these and various other topics are internal issues down in Juno, Alaska), it was the Republican Party machine which sounded what may well be the death-knell of the Sarah Palin political career.

DE-REGULATION and lower taxes are her main platforms, but let's leave the last word to Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist who proposed her as running-mate to Senator McCain. Among her issues, he mentioned the fact that Sarah Palin, two days after she was picked, had thought that:

'THE Queen of England was responsible for 'on-the-line decisions with regard to...British participation in Iraq, which she had difficulty picking out on the map'. He also thought she was 'extraordinarily divisive and deeply dishonest... with a long history that goes back to her first forays into public life...and this is a person that is literally in the middle of 40, 50, or 60 different feuds.'

Perhaps even more immediate to the internal politics of the United States was her apparent inability to describe the Bush Doctrine (whatever that was), or to name any of the newspapers with which she was familiar, beyond 'all of them, any of them.'

THERE are those in the Republican Party who believe that by portraying herself as Sarah Baracuda and a Hockey Mum, and by trying to establish an image of Republican Women as 'pitbulls with lipstick,' Sarah Palin was drifting into the politics of naked aggression, and emphasizing an attribute with which the party would rather not be directly associated. Naked Aggression is, without doubt, the Lowest Common Denominator within the two parties. But you can Never say Never! Reportedly, she still enjoys the support of the Ultra-Conservative factions of Big Money and Big Media.

THE question now is - Was Sarah Palin Unlucky, or was she simply Unprepared for politics on the National level? Go Figure!

References. Nick Broomfield- Channel 4 Documentary; Sarah Palin: YOU BETCHA!