WASHINGTON — As world-changing summit meetings go, the big Sarah Palin/Michele Bachmann rally in Minneapolis Wednesday didn’t quite rise to the level of “King Kong vs. Godzilla.” But the moment the two favorite red-meat throwing tea party heroines got together could still go down in political history…. “I knew that we’d be buddies when I met her when she said, ‘Drill here, drill now,’” Palin said. “And then I replied, ‘Drill baby drill,’ and then we both said, ‘You betcha!’”
Just when I think that we as a nation couldn’t possibly become any stupider and less intellectually agile, I re-discover that collective IQ really can be measured in numbers lower than zero. This once again became painfully evident yesterday when Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann descended on Minneapolis and sucked the life force out of the crowd at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Having grown up in Minnesota, I’m surprised at the reaction the GOP’s top two harpies received. Frankly, I thought that I knew Minnesotans well enough to honestly believe that they were too smart to be so completely fooled by these two charlatans. Apparently, intellectual agility is a barrel with no bottom.
Behind the folksy bromides, the silly slogans, and the simplistic reliance on emotional appeals, listening to either Bachmann or Palin is excruciating. It’s as if I can feel my brain cells dying and my IQ diminishing with each successive “Youbetcha!!” An aural assault by Palin in particular is akin to listening to fingernails being scraped down a chalkboard. The sound of her voice, combined with her astonishing, world-class vapidity, is something I find almost painful to listen to. Listening to Palin’s speech yesterday was like being forced to watch a trailer for “Idiocracy II”. ANd don’t even get me started on Michele Bachmann, who couldn’t find two functional brain cells to rub together.
Perhaps it’s just that I hate feeling as if my intelligence is being insulted, but I can’t stomach listening to a politician who speaks in broad, meaningless generalities designed to do nothing but whip up the unthinking faithful. What’s truly sad is that Palin and Bachmann are currently two of the GOP’s biggest stars. I don’t know what this says about the state of American politics…but it can’t be a good sign.
Man, if this is the best the Republican Party has to offer, Democrats should probably plan on being in power for quite some time. Then again, the American Sheeple are just stupid and inattentive enough to be taken in by hypocrites and demagogues like Bachmann and Palin.
UPDATE: Just in case some of you have WAY too much time of your hands and are amateur, grammarians, Kitty Burns Florey tries her hand at diagramming Sarah Palin’s Engrish (thanks, Nicolette)…which only proves that she’s a far better person than I am. Frankly, I’d rather crawl on my lips across a floor strewn with broken glass. Ugh.
