Sarah Palin Not Ready for Prime Time - - - Ever

Have you been following the dust up that came out of Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair article on the relationship between former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign?

This sucker has got some legs.

Now we have two CBS News reporters, reporters who were embedded in the McCain campaign and are writing a book about it, who have come out with a little teaser of their own.

This story is so amazing that it gives you a real appreciation for the bullet we all dodged last November when America woke up from its zombie-like existence and opted out of voting to put this woman a heart beat away from the Presidency.

Three weeks out from Election Day, Salon.com came out with that now-famous story about how Todd Palin, Sarah Palin’s reported “brain trust” was once a member of the Alaska Independence Party. The sole purpose of the party was to advocate Alaska’s secession from the Union. He was a member for 7 years.

The story caught fire that day and it really rattled Palin’s cage, especially when she started getting comments about it at rallies later that day.

From CBS:

“The comment set her off. She worried that the campaign was not sufficiently mitigating the issue of her alleged connection to the party, which despite a platform that harkens more to the Civil War than the 21st century, continued to play a serious role in Alaska politics.”

So Palin started an email flame war with the campaign’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt with an ever-lengthening cc list.

“Pls get in front of that ridiculous issue that's cropped up all day today - two reporters, a protestor's sign, and many shout-outs all claiming Todd's involvement in an anti-American political party," Palin wrote. "It's bull, and I don't want to have to keep reacting to it ... Pls have statement given on this so it's put to bed.”

When she didn’t get the response she wanted (Schmidt told her to ignore the remarks) she descended that slippery slope of lies:

“That's not part of their platform and he was only a 'member' bc independent alaskans too often check that 'Alaska Independent' box on voter registrations thinking it just means non partisan," Palin wrote. "He caught his error when changing our address and checked the right box. I still want it fixed.”

Schmidt replied that, in essence, she was full of it and if they put out a statement like that it would cook McCain’s goose. McCain was all set to debate with Obama for the third and last time later that evening and all he needed was to have to deal with this when what he really wanted to do was to introduce Joe the Plumber to America.

We’ve all moved on, but every time something like this comes up I just shake my head in wonderment. Wonderment that while the election was an electoral college rout, in the popular vote the result was closer with just a 7% spread between them.

59,934,814 people voted for that Alaskan nitwit.