How low is the bar?

Poor Sarah Palin. It appears that Katie Couric (who knew?) has yet again been practicing some of that "gotcha journalism" you hear so much about. She pulled the dirty trick of asking little Sarah what newspapers and/or magazines she regularly read before being nominated to be Vice President of the United States of America.

Sarah, alas, was not able to name a single one. Such a tricky bitch, that Katie Couric.

Of course, if that question had been asked of me, it would have been kind of a trick question. I haven't bought a dead-tree copy of a newspaper in years. I don't know that I've had a magazine subscription since Mad. But... just checking here... opening up the "history" pane in Firefox.. this is a sampling of some of the news sources I've informed myself with over the last 4 days:

Bloomberg
NBC
CBS
ABC
CNN
MSNBC
FOX
New York Times
Washington Post
L.A. Times
The Economist
Chicago Tribune
San Francisco Chronicle
Wall Street Journal
Newsweek
Dallas Morning News
Reuters
New York Post
AP
Time
Boston Globe
The Guardian
The Daily Mail
BBC News
Financial Times
New York Magazine
Alaska Daily News
Miami Herald
International Herald Tribune
Xinhua
Al Jazeera
Seattle Times
The Politico
Denver Post
The Atlantic
Congressional Quarterly
The New Yorker
National Review
The Nation

Not to mention dozens of blogs and opinion sites. Just in the last 4 days.

But being well-informed about politics and national and world news is my hobby. Not my job. In fact, it is antithetical to my job. Imagine how well-informed I would be if I were actually employed in politics? My guess is that prior to being nominated to be Vice President of the United States of America Sarah Palin rarely read anything other than the local bumfuck Alaska daily, plus maybe People and US Weekly.

And I guarantee -- in fact I would bet my life savings -- that I could tear Sarah Palin to tiny shreds in a debate on just about any topic under the sun (excluding, of course, the proper christianist methods of witch hunting).

And so does this qualify me to be a candidate for the Vice Presidency of the United States of America? Unfortunately, no. I'm no good at glad-handing, back-slapping, small talk, schmoozing, pandering, or any of the other happy shit that politics so often requires. In fact, I am abrasive bordering on antisocial bordering on sociopathic. So that, apparently, disqualifies me. As it probably should.

But yet is this what our national politics have come to? We find some unknown person, who fits the proper demographic profile, who looks good on camera, who holds the right views on god, gays, and guns, and who isn't, as of the exact date of nomination, under indictment for any serious felonies, and place that person in a position to be running the entire fucking country at a moment's notice, simply because she loves god, hates gays, and shoots a bunch of babies out her vagina, but despite the fact that not only is she supremely ill-informed about history, science, politics, and the world in general, but also that she wears her ignorance as a badge of honor, hates, despises, fears, and denounces people who are educated and informed, and to top it all off not only has never bothered to read any news but is also too stupid to be able to fake any good answer or indeed even name a single news source in service of propagating a credible lie to at least mollify and provide the slightest bit of cover for her compatriots in idiocy that insist on supporting her no matter how incredibly fucking stupid she proves herself to be???

These Republican dumbfucks have set the lowest of low bars here. I am embarrassed to live in a country that even pretends to take shit like this seriously.