Hmmmm

Welcome to this year's blockbuster

The US VP candidate is gun-toting, God-fearing proof that we are at the mercy of morons.

I'M OBSESSED with Sarah Palin. She's the first thing I think about when I wake and the last thing I think of before I go to sleep. I google her a dozen times a day and manage to bring her up in every conversation I have.

"You have hair. Sarah Palin has hair. What a coincidence! She has big hair and it's brown. Her kids have hair too. Their names are Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig. Would you like to see a photo of Sarah's hair? Or her kids' hair? Or her husband the First Dude's hair? She's a great mother, she went back to work three days after giving birth to a disabled child. Of course, she didn't have to. She chose to. She and the First Dude had little Trig's best interests at heart. Never too early to instil independence. It toughens 'em up. Next stop? A bloody good war."

I found myself checking out Palin Facebook groups last night. The ones that amused me included: Excuse Me, But Has Anyone Else Noticed That Sarah Palin Is Insane? My Dog Is More Qualified To Be Vice-President Than Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin Is A Bona Fide Whack Job. Librarians Against Sarah Palin. I Would Have **** With, But Not Vote For, Sarah Palin. And: I Would Rather Have A Mentally Challenged Goat As VP Than Sarah Palin.

I'd been thinking the US election campaign was dragging on endlessly until I read the headline "McCain chooses woman for running mate." I loved that, "woman". Sums the whole thing up. She's the closest thing Republican strategists could find to a man with a vagina. No political party in the world would have had the genius to dream up Sarah Palin. She's a social experiment with lipstick.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd likened the Sarah Palin story to the chick flick Miss Congeniality. I think of it more as an in-flight movie. Like Dumb and Dumber. If you're after a laugh, check out the campaign poster for McCain and Palin. The slogan is "The Ticket For America". The running mates look like an old rich bloke with erectile dysfunction and his white trash trophy wife wearing glasses so she looks intellectual and that.

McCain strikes me as "a bit of a fall" away from stewed prunes and dribbling, and she looks as hungry and deranged as Anna Nicole Smith. "Hey, Johnny, why don't y'all take up smoking! It's not too late. Have another spoon of cholesterol. Where's that special button you done talked about that blows up countries? Bristol's boyfriend's Xbox isn't working and he's bored."

I'm not proud of it but to be honest, the comedy writer in me really, really hopes Palin gets in. Shooting, hunting, God-fearing, anti-abortion, book-banning, homophobic, white trash moron. I'd love to see the White House lawn covered in cars up on blocks. Male, female, goat or goldfish, Palin is a writer's dream. I wish I had the imagination to invent her.

And the hits just keep on coming. Each day there's another titbit that draws me in. "She what? Not only believes that abstinence should be the only form of contraception taught in schools and she slashed funding to a program for teenage mothers but she charged victims of ****ual assault for their own rape kits. I don't even know what rape kits are but I sure as hell know you don't charge people for them." And how does that whole guns and God thing work? "Say a prayer and the merciful Lord will protect us. And if he doesn't, pass me the Uzi."

The only problem with Sarah Palin is that she's real. And, like it or not, she'll be used as an example of a female politician. Regardless of the fact she should be filed under dangerous white trash fuelled by fear, propelled by power and supported by halfwits.

I have two long-held beliefs. First, people should have to pass an intelligence test before they're allowed to vote and second, that the rest of the world should be able to vote in the US elections because the outcome affects us as much as them. If not more.

Like most people, I believe in democracy. As long as everybody else votes the same way I do. The problems with democracy are that a) not everyone makes an informed choice and b) if they do, what informs that choice. We're at the mercy of the morons. People who vote for race, gender, class and politicians who massage people's prejudices and reinforce beliefs fertilised by fear.

Sarah Palin personifies the cockiness of ignorance. Bertrand Russell said: "Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." Pass me the popcorn, I can't wait to see how this movie ends.

Sarah Palin appeals to the tough guy internet neocons-- the same clowns who couldn't get ass or playing time on the field during HS yet fantasized about f'ing the brainy nerdy librarian chick while blaming the vietcong for their own personal failures. Now that they have a real life representation of all their repressed fantasies to replace the substitute in Ann Coulter, they're going crazy.