ENOUGH ALREADY!

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
--William Butler Yeats, from The Second Coming

Sarah Palin is indeed America’s Energizer Bunny. She doesn’t run down. I underestimated her the way we tend to underestimate the staying power of here-to-fore unheard-of third cousins twice removed who come to visit out of nowhere... Wasilla, maybe. What I did not underestimate was her inadequate understanding of the details of world history , especially American history and of geography. She is woefully, and some would say dangerously, ignorant of the essential components of government in a free, democratic society. What she does have is spot-on accurate instincts about how to get rich, which is the ultimate capitalist compliment... and she obviously knows the value of “hot.” When I Googled to get the correct spelling of her home town, Google guessed I might be interested in “Sarah Palin breast implants” and offered that as one of the places on the Internet I might like to investigate. O.K., O.K! I admit it. I’m carrying on way too much about the woman; but when I read this morning that she accuses Barack Obama in her new book of “a stark lack of faith in the American people,” I thought, “ENOUGH ALREADY!” Here is a man who is the epitome of the American ideal, the American dream: the son of an African father and an American mother, a bi-racial couple; the grandson of American grandparents who knew the value of American education and made it possible for him attend and graduate from the best schools in America; the man of faith who met and married a brilliant, beautiful, well-educated American woman; the father of two American children whom he adores; and on and on I could go with reasons to believe Barack Obama is fully invested in a strong American nation. He isn't white, which obviously bothers some folks; but white isn't what America is about. That fact is a bitter pill for some people to swallow.

Because leaders of the Republican Party have vowed to undermine his presidency and to prevent at all costs his being reelected, the honest, responsible legislators in Washington have got to pick their way, our way, carefully through the next two years. The recession delivered by the previous administration to Barack Obama is receding slowly, but not fast enough to quell the fears and paranoia of citizens who listen only to Fox News and who don’t read anything but outrageous lies about the President that circulate around the Internet. The Internet messages range from dire warnings that our Constitution is in danger of being replaced by Sharia Law to proof positive that Barack Obama is not an American Citizen and therefore a fraudulent President. Sarah Palin is right when she says these really are critical times. She is wrong when she crows that her Tea Party Express will lead us back from the brink of armageddon and will restore what she says Barack Obama is taking away. She says in her new book that the nation is in critical danger because the President doesn’t believe America is “an exceptional nation, the shining city on a hill” that Ronald Reagan believed it is.” Her logic is flawed, and I'm guessing she knows it. The way she has chosen will make her richer, and that is her goal. If her primary interest had been in serving the people of Alaska, she would not have resigned as governor midway through her term. Why should we believe she is genuinely interested now in serving the American nation instead of polishing her own star.

Note: I was halfway through this journal piece when I checked my e-mail and found his reminder of Yeats famous poem. It fit perfectly with what I was writing.

CHECK FRANK RICH'S COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK TIMES... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/opinion/21rich.html?ref=frankrich