A Special Moment For A Special Candidate

While you can be quite sure that as the memory fades this special moment will be nothing more than a pimple on the ass of history, but isn’t it extraordinary that a woman who declares that she is ready to be vice president can’t meet the press but can do a star turn on “Saturday Night Live”?

Yes it is extraordinary, but merely symptomatic of a train-wreck of a campaign that is measured more in grimaces and red-meat speechifying than position papers.

As it is, Sarah Palin’s much-anticipated appearance on “SNL” was anticlimactic. When your chief attribute is vacuity and you’re appearing on the show because of its serial ridicule of that attribute — specifically the routines of the way-popular Tina Fey — there’s not a lot of room for, say, a flute solo or moose-hunting demonstration.

Yes, other politicians, ranging from to Al Gore to Hillary Clinton to John McCain, have been roasted on “SNL” over the years and later made cameo appearances because they knew that being a good sport was a good thing.

But Gore was teased for his dullness, Clinton for her cackling laugh and McCain for his age, while with Palin it is all about her cluelessness.

Once you scratched the surface, there was something decidedly unfunny– and in fact downright horrifying and sad — about seeing the bimbo with the red power suit and designer eyeglasses who could be a heartbeat away from the presidency break a leg for a comedy show when she can’t break a sweat about the stuff that really matters in these troubling times.

The joke was not on Sarah Palin. It was on the American people.