From lie to shining lie

Many of us saw the photos of the anti-Palin rally in Alaska recently and patriots took heart at the negative reception. The Palin Rally in The Villages, a planned community near Orlando, Florida yesterday was a different scene entirely. Estimates of the size of the turnout ran from 30,000 to 50,000.

The South is Palin Country read the banner, although the area is home mainly to retired people from the North. Just as her performance with Sean Hannity suggested, she spent 23 minutes slinging wild and wicked lies about Barak Obama because, like her enthusiastically stupid supporters, she has very little to brag about in terms of knowledge, experience, education or intelligence.

The Tax and Spend straw man, which should have been relegated by current events to some bonfire of the vanities was aired, along with the promise that more regulation is what the Republican ticket is all about. No word yet from the Reagan grave site as to subterranean rumblings.

McCain "fought for the surge" lied Palin, as if that surge and not the ethnic cleansing, slaughter and forced exile had caused the death rate to descend from cataclysmic to simply horrible. Of course although she claims to have been on the battlefield, she's never been to Iraq. She briefly visited Kuwait and lies about it. Perhaps we should forgive the gross ignorance because you can't see either country from Alaska. '

'At a decisive moment in the course of the war in Iraq, John McCain fought for the strategy, the surge, that has brought victory within sight,''

said Palin, neglecting to note that it's been in sight and around the corner since 2003 and failing to explain what the hell victory might mean in terms of long term occupation of a devastated, depopulated country that insists we leave now.

Although Obama does openly favor responsible offshore drilling, along with investment in alternative energy, Palin continued her bleat with:

''Maybe if he'd been the governor of an energy-rich state, he'd get it. Maybe if he'd been on the front lines of securing our nation's energy independence, he'd understand.''

Of course she's never been on the front lines of anything. Although she lies by insisting that Alaska, with 3.5% of domestic production provides 20%, in truth it doesn't have enough oil to make a dent in energy independence and Texas provides more oil. Canada provides the lion's share of imports. George Bush, whose qualifications regarding oil greatly exceed hers, hasn't proved to be much of a help in the energy independence department and both Palin and McCain are staunch and relentless foes of energy conservation and alternative energy.

Her reception confirms several things, among which are that there is no lie so transparent or so gross that the party faithful will not believe it with enthusiasm, nor is there a candidate so obviously unqualified by intelligence, knowledge or character that she will not be supported. A new Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9 poll showed that 40 percent of voters who back McCain said Palin made them feel stronger about their choice. Meet it is, I set it down -- a woman can lie, and lie and lie and be Vice President.

''She's the sunrise, not the sunset,''

said Linda Cusumano, 57, of Orlando, quoted in today's Miami Herald.

"She makes me feel there's nothing we can't do.''

Indeed she's right. Linda and the other Visigoths can destroy the United States of America far better than any invading army ever could, much less a ragtag bunch of amateur suicide pilots. Linda and her ilk have, in fact, made it not worth saving. Perhaps future historians will try to fix the exact point at which the collapse became irreversible. Perhaps that moment will be this one.