Yes, yes, Palin keeps hinting at a possible presidential run, but that’s all there ever is, a hint here and hint there, as if she’s just trying to keep the speculation going, and I remain convinced, or almost convinced, that she won’t end up running, not with so much at stake, not with so much to lose, including her status as Tea Party shadchan and party kingmaker.

But, honestly, attacking Michelle Obama for promoting breast-feeding?

Sarah Palin followed in Rep. Michele Bachmann’s footsteps and took a swipe at Michelle Obama on Thursday, mocking her efforts to get mothers to breast-feed their children.

“No wonder Michelle Obama is telling everybody, ‘You’d better breast-feed your baby,'” she said at a Long Island appearance on Thursday, after slamming President Barack Obama for rising gas prices and other items — like milk — since he took office. “Yeah, you’d better, because the price of milk is so high right now.”

The comments come two days after Bachmann accused the first lady of trying to implement a “nanny state.”

“To think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump for my babies? You wanna talk about the nanny state, I think you just got a new definition.”

Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican and tea party favorite, added that the first lady’s agenda is “very consistent with where the hard left is coming from.”

What udder nonsense.

How is Obama responsible for the price of milk? He certainly is more powerful than we all imagine if he can really influence consumer product costs so directly. (Palin must think he’s some sort of god, pulling strings and controlling our lives.)

And what’s wrong with breast-feeding? How is it inappropriate for the first lady — who, by the way, is clearly not making policy or pushing legislation — to promote something (and all first ladies promote things, that comes with the job) that is not just medically sensible but naturally human? How is that “the nanny state” run amok?

There’s nothing wrong not just with the first lady but with the president or any other government official making suggestions and encouraging healthy choices (like exercising, not smoking, etc.). It’s only the nanny state when government actually seeks to micro-regulate behaviour, prying into aspects of society that are better left private. (Which is precisely what theocratic social conservatives like Palin herself seek to do, not liberals like Obama and not even more left-wing progressives, who while advocating bigger government are nonetheless committed to civil liberties and individual choice.)

Oh, and how is preferring breast-feeding a “hard left” thing? It is because it takes profits away from the Big Baby Formula companies?

(Umm… wasn’t it Nancy Reagan, wife of the supposedly greatest Republican ever, who had that whole “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign? Talk about the hard-left nanny state! Or how about Laura Bush and literacy? Another left-wing plot? Well, maybe, given how much the right hates book learnin’.)

Honestly, this is just pathetic, and it shows just how low the likes of Palin and Bachmann are willing to go in their non-stop efforts to score political points. I suppose their admirers on the right love this sort of thing, but it’s hard to imagine this charge being taken seriously by anyone who deals with reality (and human nature) on a regular basis.

All these two do is continue to embarrass themselves. It’s amusing, to a point, but also evidence of astounding ignorance and extreme partisanship. And it’s telling that they’re both such huge celebrities, especially Palin, in today’s Republican Party.

(Cross-posted from The Reaction.)