Game Change: The Aftermath

I spent my Saturday evening watching the HBO debut of — Game Change — the misanthropic story of how Sarah Palin almost ruined our nation by becoming Vice-President.

I did not appreciate Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin because she was too reserved and imitative instead of inhabitative.  I much prefer Tina Fey’s combative sendup of Ms. Palin because she better characterizes the manic wackiness that made Palin so ridiculous and so very dangerous — we laugh because we are terrified of what could have been.  Ed Harris as McCain was ordinary and not angry enough and not stiff enough to be convincing.  Woody Harrelson was magnificent.  He stole the show as campaign advisor Steve Schmidt.

Lest we forget the threat Palin posed to our nation, we need only to turn to this excellent, and recent, reminder from Andrew Sullivan:

Anyone with even the faintest grasp of Palin’s reality – including former close aides like Frank Bailey – understands that she is emotionally unstable, paranoid, vindictive, self-destructive, religiously fanatical and clinically deluded. Her “wonderful mothering” led her to take a tiny child with Down Syndrome and parade him in front of the cameras as a political prop, and later hauling him out half-naked at night to show off to fans on her book tour. None of her children has made it to college; one was a teenage vandal, another a teen mom. A man who lived in her house, says her children had to raise themselves. She quit office in mid-term because her vanity and rapacity were more important to her than public service. The victims of her vicious career lie strewn all over Alaska. Anyone faintly aware of reality also knows that John McCain was as cynical, brutal and expedient a figure as anyone to run for president – and that Palin’s selection was an act of such grotesque vanity and cynicism that it instantly disqualified him from the presidency.

The fact that Palin is still among us, means we must always rivet against her. We cannot allow her ilk to direct our national discourse any longer. We cannot be manipulated by her cruel and malicious prejudices. We must separate from her bullying brand of hatred and instead choose goodness and rightful deeds over her sort of rotting, pandering, emotional destruction. We do not always have to elect those we deserve; and let’s never start with Sarah Palin.