HER FUTURE LOOKS BLEAK

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska fired back Friday at the unnamed McCain campaign aides who have been maligning her in recent days, saying that their criticism was “cruel and it’s mean-spirited, it’s immature, it’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks.”

Fox News, quoted unnamed McCain campaign officials, as saying that Ms. Palin had not known that Africa was a continent, not a country, and claiming that she did not know which countries were covered by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Add this to her incredibly stupid early interviews with Katie Couric among others, and you will get a picture of a political neophyte, and not the "leader of the Republican party" others may try to proclaim her.

And so, we ask the question, does this mean, inexperienced and vapid Alaskan governor have a future on the national stage, or has she received her undeserved fifteen minutes of fame, and must, for the good of the party go gently into the night?

I for one, cannot believe she could be considered for dog catcher, let alone deserve national prominence. Despite making several gaffes on the campaign circuit, she continues to this day, to point the blame elsewhere. Of the press, she has been quoted as saying, “The majority of the press have been fair, but there have been some stinkers, though, who have kind of made the whole basket full of apples, once in a while, smell kind of bad.”

The McCain campaigns efforts to paint her as a hard nosed budget "bull dog" certainly back fired as the press reported on her $150,000.00 wardrobe expenditure, not to mention her love of all things pork barrel earmarked for her state. Even her boasts of selling the executive plane on E-Bay turned out to be a lie, as it was unloaded for a loss in auction.

Worst of all for the Palin reputation were the constant and persistent reports of her rogue-like behavior, described as "diva like" by campaign staffers, causing an enormous rift between her and Senator McCain through the final month of the campaign.

Did she cost McCain a considerable number of votes as speculated? I say yes, although with her or without her, McCain would have lost the election. The final analysis will show the ultimate causes of the McCain near landslide defeat to Obama was an economic downturn, the George Bush record / administration, the Barack Obama change message, Sarah Palin and McCain himself, in that order.

There are, of course, desenting views of Ms. Palin's future. Katherine Berry, in the right wing blog, Pajamas Media writes...."the continued inability of McCain’s staff to recognize that Sarah Palin could — indeed, should — have been the GOP’s Obama. Her folksy, “hockey Mom” persona was the perfect foil to Obama’s claim that he was a relative Washington outsider, just as her from-the-hip speaking style was the mirror image of Obama’s soaring, lofty rhetoric. Where Obama sought to break the racial barrier as a harbinger of change and reform, Palin as the vice president would have broken the gender barrier, accomplishing the same goal. Yet despite the huge surge in the GOP’s favor after naming Palin to the ticket, the McCain campaign squandered away her appeal. Some wonder now, in hindsight, whether this waste was intentional."

As to Palin's future, she, as always, has the last word....“I don’t have any idea of what the next chapter of life is going to open up into, and I look forward to just the surprises that life offers.” Pithy, as always Governor. Your fifteen minutes of fame are up, and you have been relegated to a very small asterisk in history. Go live your Alaskan life Grandma, and leave us alone.