John McCain has just announced that his vice presidential candidate will be Sarah Palin, of Alaska. I can’t conceive of a better litmus test for my (already low) estimation of intelligence among the general electorate. There appear to be two to three different bits of logic at work here, all of them so simplistic that they just might work. Let’s look at the decisison making process that may have gone into selecting Ms. Palin.
1.) She has breasts. As a matter of fact, she has two, and they were nice enough to get her a position as Miss Bumfuck Alaska, which is amusing because “small town Alaska” is definitely a relative term. Presumably, the Geriatric Oligarchy Party’s thinking went a little like this: Well, women wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton. What do we know about her? She’s a woman! Let’s get one of our own!” Bada bing, bada boom – after a brief search, the Republican party managed to find a white woman who didn’t look like her vagina possessed teeth (that means you, Ann Coulter) and promptly slapped her in front of a microphone.
2.) She has a tragic personal story. Besides being a woman, and thus born oppressed both culturally and economically (which, amusingly, is something the GOP can’t exploit because it refuses to admit) she has a kid with Down syndrome. Like all good Lifetime movies, the plot thickens – she knew this child had Down syndrome before he was born, but opted to carry the child because 1.) her take on abortion is downright medieval and 2.) this extra chromosome is, and I am paraphrasing here, a gift from God. Now, I’m not particularly religious, but there are a number of things that one could conceivably identify as a gift from God. The sun, for example, or bikinis. Oral sex. The list goes on, but it certainly does not go on all the way to birth defects.
3.) She’s Republican. This is presumably a convergence of a number of unfortunate coincidences – poor education, bad genes, similarly indoctrinated parents.
All three of these things, while endearing to NRA members and the oxygen deficient, make me seriously skeptical of her ability to lead the country; a legitimate concern given that John McCain is one good erection away from a coronary.
For now, I’ll content myself with the myriad Alaska jokes appearing on the internet. VPILF.com, for example. Or the observation that her state is younger than John McCain. Or that there are more bears than liberals in Alaska. Or that she pays $150 a paw for the killing of endangered wolves. Wait, that wasn’t funny. That’s sick.
