Palinio ad absurdum

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Honestly, I've had enough of Sarah Palin, more than enough, and, as I watch the Palin PR train steam its way around the media, including on Oprah today -- what level of hell is that, I ask? -- I blame myself for being so Palin-focused this past year. Well, maybe not "focused," but I have written a lot about her, and what an awful waste of time it has been.

It was one thing when she was a veep candidate, an unavoidable figure on the national stage, and when she was actually in office, back when there was a point to her, but now that she's just a self-aggrandizing and woefully delusional, not to mention exceedingly dishonest, political celebrity in search of money and attention, still pushing her weight around even as she wallows in self-styled victimhood at the hands of nefarious elites, pushing her "death panel" lies, her incongruous theocratic-libertarian right-wing worldview, and her me-first persona, the object of so much lustful affection from the neocons at The Weekly Standard, the extremists in the conservative media, and the mob-like GOP base, there doesn't seem to be a point at all, except perhaps to the extent she's contributing to the ongoing Republican civil war.

Except that she's now a bestselling author, what with Going Rogue already destined for huge sales, and so we face the ongoing media blitz that seemed to peak today on Oprah. No, I didn't watch, and, no, I won't, given how much I dislike them both, but, thankfully, others did, to them we turn, if we must. Michelle Cottle found that Palin "came off looking... pretty good," which is hardly surprising, given how packaged she is and how prepared she no doubt was, and it wasn't like Oprah was going to sabotage her own catch by pulling a Katie Couric and embarrasing Palin with a few relatively tough questions:

All things considered, the sit-down should prove a plus for Palin. That said, it did raise a few questions about the long-term prospects for her reinvention tour. This is clearly a woman who has neither forgotten nor forgiven the many injuries she feels were unfairly visited on her last year by the media, the Democrats, the McCain campaign, and other "haters." It's possible she realizes that she made some significant mistakes, but that realization is clearly buried under a massive glacier of resentment and irritation at others. Asked point blank by Oprah if, when she got the call from the McCain campaign, she had even a moment of wondering whether she was ready for the job of vice president, Palin stuck with the "I didn't blink" assertion and reminded us of all her executive experience. The only failure or naivety Palin remains willing to acknowledge is that she didn't realize the perfidy or self-interestedness of those around her. Palin is charming and charismatic enough that this wasn’t a big problem for the length of an unexceptional Oprah interview. But it promises to make any future political runs verrrrry interesting.

Interesting, perhaps, but Palin doesn't stand a chance on the national stage, where she would only embarrass herself further. It's one thing to look good on Oprah, another to reach out to voters beyond the GOP mob, to put together a coherent policy platform, and come across as a worthy national leader. It's hardly surprising, after all, that an overwhelming majority of Americans thinks Palin is not qualified to be president. There is a great deal of delusion in the American electorate, but a lot of voters were paying attention last year, and they didn't exactly like what they saw. Still, you shouldn't count out the influence of her conservative admirers, the likes of Hannity and Limbaugh, Kristol and Barnes, Coulter and O'Reilly, the increasingly dominant faction of the GOP behind the Doug Hoffman insurgency in NY-23, and so you never know.

But back to Oprah: Some critics were less kind than Cottle, including the Times's Alessandra Stanley, found Palin's performance "surprisingly unsmooth," which is also hardly surprising, given how easily rattled she is when challenged outside of her narrow comfort zone. As prepared as she may have been, all the preparation in the world can't cover up her core. She generally looks good, and is generally amusing enough, but beneath the surface is a woman who is, as I put it repeatedly last year, both a twit and a thug.

At Slate, Christopher Beam noted that "Oprah avoided going into full Oprah mode." For the most part, she stuck to "the Palin-approved script" -- and, for the most part, Palin stuck to hers.

Oprah closed the interview by asking whether it was true that Palin might be getting her own talk show. Instead of an answer, Palin reached for the butter. "Oprah, you're the queen," Palin said. "You have nothing to worry about." That may be so. But for Palin, a talk show would be a best case scenario: Top billing. Pre-set conversation topics. A favorable audience. And once and for all, a media filter of her own.

If you still can't get enough, check out Andrew Sullivan's courageous live-blogging of Palin's appearance on Oprah. I say "courageous" because it no doubt took a certain self-sacrifice to sit through it all. Sullivan does stellar work peeling back the layers of bullshit that thinly disguises the real Sarah Palin, and his post is worth reading -- it's certainly more enjoyable, I can only imagine, than actually watching the interview, and many of his points only further discredit a woman who, to me, has no credibility at all.

Okay, enough. We're already well past the point of Palin saturation, and even tonight's ugly Ravens-Browns Monday nighter, a game featuring two of my most hated teams in professional sports, a dull game tied 0-0 at the half, is more interesting than the predictable cult of narcissism that is Sarah Palin. This media blitz is just a rerun that would have been better left in the can, bestseller and all.