“A Forty-Something Eighth Grader”

Here's a lively review of Geoffrey Dunn's book, "The Lies Of Sarah Palin." This is the first time I've read this devastating assessment of her central flaw from her local paper, The Frontiersman:

"Wasilla residents have been subject to attempts to unlawfully appoint council members, statements that have been shown to be patently untrue, unrepentant backpedaling, and incessant whining that her only enemies are the press and a few disgruntled supporters of Mayor Stein. Mayor Palin fails to have a firm grasp of something very simple: the truth."

This is nicely wrought:

She may be the first who has put together "a perfect storm" of all of the most dangerous qualities of a demagogue in a single package: she is mean-spirited, inept, vindictive, and lazy, but can play all the emotional chords in the correct keys of the lower octaves of America's divisive undercurrents.

That's why I remain vigilant about her, even as her prospects for electoral success seem to be on the decline. Never under-estimate the power of a demagogue in a recession. Especially one in which the jobs are never coming back.