Scarlett O'Hara Palin

Did you see her last night? Did you see Sarah Palin doing stand-up on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as part of her victory sprint through the psyche of the American electorate as she refashions her image? (To view several segments of her appearance, go to http://www.hulu.com/search?query=sarah+palin+on+tonight+show&st=1.)

Oh, she’s so cute and so disingenuous as she explains that joining Fox News as a contributing commentator was her way of trying to bring back fair and balanced reporting to the national media. Only someone delusional could believe and say with a straight face that Fox News was fair and balanced.

She plays the perfect victim—she’s the Scarlett O’Hara of politics. Whenever exposed for contradictions, inconsistencies or incompetency, she smiles away her predicament and the darlin’ public melts. Even Tina Fey’s dead-on satiric caricature she now uses to her advantage, to humanize a calculating politician, for who doesn’t like a pol who can’t take a joke? But the joke’s on us.

Trust me when I tell you that from the get-go I considered Sarah Palin long-term trouble for the Democratic Party and the country at large. Like many, I laughed at her naivete and just plain dumbness. But I quickly realized that her “aw-shucks” traits would strike a deep chord with many of the electorate who have proven time and again they vote with their hearts, not their minds, they vote with their rose-colored, patriotic, bi-focaled mis-beliefs rather than their pocketbook balances.

Sarah Palin is just one of us, they believe. She, along with George W. Bush, give rise to the absurd belief that anyone can be president. No! Anyone should not become president. I want someone who’s smarter than I am. I want someone in the Oval Office who understands economics, understands world history and diplomacy, who understands science (OK, maybe not an A student, but at least someone who doesn’t let religion undermine scientific advancement). I want someone who understands sociology, who understands how people interact, and can do so for the greater good. I want someone who did not major in cafeteria, as I did.

Sarah Palin. She’s not the problem. The problem is we are a nation of too many idiots. Too many crazies.

We’ve allowed our “government of the people, by the people, for the people” to become a government captive of fringe people.

I don’t consider Sen. Kay Hutchinson to be a moderate. But compared to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, she is. So she lost her state’s primary bid for the gubernatorial nomination because she was considered to be too centrist.

Our nation is polarizing. It used to be along racial lines, then economic lines. We increasingly are carved up into too many non-interlocking segments. We’re no longer a melting pot stew of shared experiences and aspirations. We’re a stew of conflicting emotions and prejudices.

Politics used to be the art of compromise. Today, politics is the art of deception. Of obstruction. At least with Sarah Palin, her script is out in the open. She’s obvious, to a fault. And that’s the truly scary thing—too many of our fellow citizens are drinking her Kool-Aid.