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Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt.  (M. Twain)

Vanity Fair provides more than just a good read at times. Its recent eight page examination of Sarah Palin is extremely informative.

I end up in the living room of Colleen Cottle, who is the matriarch of one of Wasilla's oldest families, and who served on the city council when Palin was mayor. She says she and her husband, Rodney, will pay a price for speaking candidly about Palin. Their son is one of Todd Palin's best friends. "But it is time for people to start telling the truth," Colleen says. She describes the frustrations of trying to do city business with a mayor who "had no attention span--with Sarah it was always 'What's the flavor of the day?' "; who was unable to take part meaningfully in conversations about budgets because she "does not understand math or accounting--she only knows buzzwords, like 'balanced budget' "; and who clocked out after four hours on most days, delegating her duties to an aide--"but he'll never talk to you, because he has a state job and doesn't want to lose it." This type of conversation is repeated so often that Wasilla starts to feel like something from The Twilight Zone or a Shirley Jackson short story--a place populated entirely by abuse survivors.   http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/10/sarah-palin-201010?currentPage=6

When you really think about it, who does this remind you of?

Even with a Yale/Harvard education; this description of the daily life of the chief executive of Wasilla is exactly how I envisioned George W. Bush in the Oval Office.

Buzzwords; working half days when he was not on vacation; flavor of the day; unable to engage in meaningful conversations...and all the time  George W. Bush was surrounded either by sycophants or extremely powerful people who knew how to steer the bastard in the 'proper' directions for the good of the powerful.

There are differences between George and Sarah; to be sure.

At least w was forced to listen to some lectures and cram for tests at prestigious schools. He also had to shape up for a least a couple of his six year stint with the Guard and he had some grasp of how our military worked.

Palin never was forced into any kind of intellectual or military discipline.

If Sarah actually reaches that Oval Office--and do not discount this possibility--the commercial interests behind the power and the representatives of our military industrial complex will prevail in a manner never really witnessed before in this country.

Hopefully, like beck and rush and the rest of the feces slingers, Palin will just stick to her current plan of filling her bank accounts and stock portfolios.

I wrote this for TPMAHOLICS  where I will be during our hiatus; but Amike, the author of the site had an interesting take on this thread of mine.

It's funny how people always talk up local government. The more local the better. So counties are less virtuous than states, but states are more virtuous than the federal government is. Wasilla proves that goofballs exist at all governmental levels, and goofballs elect goofballs at all levels. Plenty of Uncle Louies at the local level, too...just the rewards of having a nephew on the town council (or vice versa) are a little less rewarding.

So while I was attempting to find the real Sarah, his take brought me back to local government.  There have been plenty of wonderful stories at the local level of government published at Cafe. Some of our Café participants have actually become deeply involved in their city and county governments.

And these participants in the electoral process must fight against incompetence as well as evil. hahaha

Oh and happy Labor Day!!!