Op-Ed: Not a Wiser Shade of Palin

Well, well, well. What to do about Governor Sarah Palin and her "abysmal ignorance" - as the San Francisco Chronicle termed it - of the way things work in Washington, or possibly anywhere in the lower 48 states?

Could McCain have picked a better candidate to raise the hopes of thinking people that he will not, after all, get his kick at the can? Governor Palin was speaking about the current bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Let's just say that virtually everyone with eyeballs has seen at least one story about the troubles in the U.S. housing market and - most recently - the fact that Fannie Mae, once regarded as the bedrock of investment vehicles because of its conservatism, and the similarly perceived Freddie Mac, have fallen upon equally hard times. Only a bailout of the highest order is keeping these two propped up - because without it, not only will they self-destruct but they will take everyone else with them. To quote Governor Palin, Fannie and Freddie had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers" There. Embroider it and hang it above the place where you keep your piggy-bank because this sort of breathtaking ignorance has - so far - been relatively scarce. But who knows? Perhaps the Governor will honour us with a few more statements that highlight the brilliance of her untutored mind. The dashing duo - no, no, not McCain&Palin, Fannie&Freddie - are now being hoisted upon the weak and slender shoulders of the American taxpayer, as the Governor seems not to have understood; "only now will those privately owned banks become a huge taxpayer obligation as the federal government takes them over" as Robert Scheer points out today in the San Francisco Chronicle. And it was the policies of the GOP that permitted this debacle to occur: "The mortgage swaps distancing the originator of the loan from the ultimate collector were only made legal as a result of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that former Texas Republican Sen. Phil Gramm pushed through Congress just hours before the 2000 Christmas recess." This is the same Gramm who pleaded with Ron Paul - the libertarian, nominally Republican, candidate for president who picked up a few million followers on the Internet. Mr. Paul probably had a few choice words for him that we would - if we knew them - repeat here. But that is idle speculation. What is not speculation is the terrible ignorance of Governor Not-A-Wiser-Shade-of-Palin. Well. They do say Ignorance Is Bliss. >Duh!< maybe that's why she appeared so fluffy and bubbly and blissful when they hauled her onstage as potential Veep last week. Ya think?