I am sure now that Walt Disney is backing the Republican ticket. In the Magic Kingdom, if you go to the Carousel of Progress, the Animatronic Mom from the Family of Tomorrow has been removed, given glasses and a pants suit, and sent out on to the stage tonight for the Vice Presidential debate.
This is the Sarah Palin not of the impromptu interview, where she is left to actually come up with an answer to a question that is only modestly rehearsed, and she can be easily tripped up.
No, this is Shining Sarah, the PalinDroid of the campaign trail, a pre-programmed robot that shows up in front of the loyal masses and drops empty platitudes and a half-dozen "maverick" drops before being loaded up for the next campaign stop.
Like her stump appearances, there wasn't much substance coming out of Mrs. Palin as she tried her best to avoid answering the questions.
What did slip out, though, you should truly find frightening.
Governor Sarah Palin just announced that she will be alienating most of the Middle East by locating our Israeli embassy in Jerusalem, and that, more frighteningly, she wants to expand the powers of the Vice Presidency over the United States Senate to institutionalize some of the evils that Darth Cheney has done to our Constitution and the ever-expanding powers of the Executive Branch.
That she missed the concept that placing our embassy which, by its presence in Tel Aviv, recognizes Israel, would be a political time bomg in Jerusalem. Recognizing Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel has never been done by the United States because of the symbolism that so deeply offends the Arab world, which also sees Jerusalem as one of its most holy cities. It was probably a boo-boo of some overly hawkish Palin programmers.
"I told you to delete that subroutine, Ed... It was just a gag to relieve the stress around here from the debate prep," you can almost here one of the white lab-coated Disney geeks grumbling after tonight's performance.
It was a nice bone for the voters in my home state of Florida, but there is no way that it happens in practice. It would not only deeply destabilize our relations in the region, but, if we did a Bush and just didn't care, it would make it very hard to staff the building unless you had a really good Jihadist exemption in your life insurance policy. As targets go, they might as well tell the architect to design the building in the shape of an enormous bullseye.
Okay, she got the general in Afghanistan wrong. McClellan was a Civil War general. Maybe forced march and sustained rifle volleys might work if the Taliban doesn't outflank our Civil War re-enactment group. It was General David McKiernan disagreed with her, and still does. What works in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan.
The thing that really scared me, though, is that the SarahDroid let out one big cat from the bag:
Apparently, McCain will seek to expand and institutionalize the powers of the White House to include the expanded powers of the Vice President that Cheney so wrongly assumed.
The CreepVeep was only supposed to sit in his role as president of the Senate to break tie votes and serve for the rare ceremonial duty or two. No VP was ever intended to be an active participant in the day-to-day of that August body.
If the Founding Fathers of this government had wanted the VP to babysit the Senate for the President, they would have probably had that written into that funny document called the Constitution that has served as the doormat of the Bush Administration since 9/11.
The White House and the Hill are different branches of government, and the twain only meet under a limited set of rules that even Dick Cheney did not twist to that level.
That, combined with her avowed pledge for continued deregulation and hamstringing of government was why I'm truly finding this Small World more of a world of fear than a world of hope.
My one hope is that her folksy style was belied by her coldness to Joe Biden. Biden, in a genuine moment, was choked up by the loss of his wife and child, as he recounted raising his family by himself. She stared into the camera and did what all animatronics at Disney World do... Kept running the show.
Check off likability in the FAIL category of Sarah's debate agenda.
She also let us know that she won't be doing any of those pesky and embarrassing interviews, or answering any of the moderator's questions. Like McCain, who was supremely arrogant to the Des Moines Register editorial board earlier this week, she is working the hot button that Fox News has institutionalized that the liberal media, and not the candidates themselves, are the cause of you seeing perceived shortcomings.
What was principally missed in her rants about less government is that our economy is in the toilet, and our banks are one step away from falling off of a very big cliff and dragging the rest of the country into Great Depression: The Sequel.
The PalinDroid never once laid out specifially how Team McCain is going to fix the economy, or how they will come up with a way to provide relief that most Americans need on taxes, healthcare, and more. Just more empty platitudes, vague generalities and attacks on the other camp's record replaced substance.
Joe Biden did a thorough and great job on the facts, and didn't take any big swings at Palin, although he kept her on point. He was informed, real, and showed the depth and gravitas that says that he should be President if Obama was unable to continue to serve.
Sarah peppered her jabs at Biden with a healthy smattering of cliches, from the maverick moments to Reagan's shining city on the hill to avoid any reference to George W. Bush. They will work for the red staters, but they were a thousand points of light short of motivating the undecideds.
Biden batted back the maverick concept, and kept the focus on the facts.
Who won? Well that depends.
If you follow the facts, and if institutionalizing Dick Cheney's bad works into the workings of our government scares the bejasus out of you, then Biden clearly won.
If, on the other hand, you were sitting there the whole time, and thinking: "You know, she's pretty hot. I wouldn't mind splitting a six pack with her," then you my friend, are exactly why we are in the mess we are in now.
You should stay away from the polls, and wait for the Palindroid's television debut as Daisy in the remake of the Dukes of Hazzard.