Matt Taibbi Vents

It’s not so much that John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. That was a calculated political move, and typical of the masterminds of that party, it was brilliant. She all at once roped in the religious wackos, and brought along the no-guv is good-guv crowd too. And as VP – well, they’ll find something for her to do. She’s short on ability, so maybe she can take a shot at climate change or ethics in government – you know – something a five-college journalism major can handle, and the sort of thing Republicans don’t care about anyway.

That’s all baseline America now – individually we’re not dumb, but collectively we’re a bunch of Neanderthals. Politicians do their business on us with the same cynicism as Krusty the Clown. They must be laughing at us as half of us form a protective circle around Palin. It’s just crazy that people don’t see clear through her to China. She’s painfully obviously unqualified for public office. Painfully.

Americans are as politically naive as a kid in a whorehouse who sees important people coming and going, but has no idea what they’re up to. Our elections have sunk to the level of MTV pop culture. McCain’s not even trying to give us a serious campaign, but he’s consistently pulling 43-45% – that’s enough to allow election fraudsters to cement his victory. President McCain. Vice President Palin. I can see Russia too. It’s looking pretty good.

Someone else is venting that frustration too, and I step aside for His Excellence. Here’s Matt Taibbi from the current issue (10/2) of Rolling Stone Magazine:

Here’s the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

“And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she’s a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant sized bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the sizzlin’ picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else’s, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because that image on TV reminds him of the mean brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

“Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she’s a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she’s the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV – and this country is going to eat her up, cheering every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.”