A reader continues the thread:
At what point did our political system become decadent? The moment when the United States collectively abdicated its responsibilities in self-government was when the American people accepted the notion that John McCain believed that Sarah Palin was qualified to serve as President of the United States. The fact that the media continues to legitimize the political viability of an individual who never gave a press conference and demonstrates zero ability to recognize what she does not know, is appalling. The fact that 45.7% of the American people in 2008 gave an affirmative answer to the very simple question: "Is Sarah Palin qualified to be President of the United States?" is telling in and of itself.
I will go further: the introduction of Sarah Palin and her perverse relationship with the American media has been the singularly most toxic element in American politics in the post-Cold War period.
I continue to be astonished that someone can post a blatant lie on a Facebook page, have the media report on it as factual news and a real policy prescription, and permanently poison the political well. We need not go past the healthcare debate to see ample evidence of this phenomenon.
We should not be deluded that even if Sarah Palin does not run for the Presidency that she will not have a profound impact on the Republican nomination process. She and her Christianist tendencies will enjoy a de facto veto over any candidate that fails to tap into her revanchist version of history – resentments against virtually all portions of American society. She is a constituency of one and the most important constituency in the Republican Party, which will result in a candidate who has no viable policy programs, but just might get elected due to economic circumstances.
The media, the American people, and most importantly the Republican Party, should forcefully tell Palin that she either needs to declare her candidacy or be shunned to a life of political insignificance. We know this is not going to happen. She is the mainstream media's favorite politician. She is the spiritual and political leader of the Republican Party. For Democrats, she is a politician who should be cajoled into running to optimize Obama's chances of reelection, under the false and dangerous conventional wisdom that she is unelectable.
American politics has always enjoyed a good sex scandal, yet in the end has been able to more or less function as a governable nation. Palin's style of politics and our ability to ignore it has resulted in our inability to extricate ourselves from three foreign wars; have an honest discussion about the impact of debt, revenue, and entitlements on the sustainability of a decent quality of life for most Americans; and permit a natural generational shift of values to occur on equal rights for all Americans.
(Photo: U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin attend a campaign rally at Pima County Fairgrounds on March 26, 2010 in Tucson, Arizona. By Darren Hauck/Getty Images)
The Dish 