With all due respect to Granny Doc, I believe that comparing Sarah Palin to a snotty Prom Queen trivializes who and what Palin is, as well as the role she has been assigned in this election.
I'm with Mike Malloy on this one: never in my life have I seen or heard anything like what I witnessed tonight. Never seen such obscenity, such bottom-crawling filth, such outright lies, made up out of whole cloth, being spewed out with such a sinister, malevolent show of righteousness.
I am beyond disgust. I have finally seen, in its true scope and magnitude, the terrifying and loathsome thing that Karl Rove has made of American politics. And this cannot stand. This abomination must be defeated.
Never, in my wildest nightmares, did I believe I would live to see the day when the power structure of my country would, literally, become something on a moral par with Hitler's Germany, with Stalin's Soviet Union, with Idi Amin's Uganda, with Qadhafi's Libya.
Somehow Palin's speech tonight opened a door that gave me a glimpse of the reality that lies beyond the surface appearances, like something out of Matrix.
Tonight I saw with new clarity the underworld that the matrix is hiding -- the eradication of our constitution, the reliance on war and fighting as the solutions to every problem, the eagerness of the traditional media to prostitute itself with breathtaking disregard for the crucial role of a free press in a democratic society, and the pervasive assumption that outright lies, "spin," and "choreography" are a normal part the so-called the political "game."
The naked reality that I was exposed to tonight by Palin's speech, and even more by the commentary in response to it, is something that not even the words "Orwellian" and "Kafkaesque" can fully capture. I don't even know how to process the revulsion, rage and despair that I am feeling about what this nation has become and the trajectory on which it is heading.
I'm watching a re-run of the MSNBC coverage tonight, and I am somehow comforted by seeing something in Rachel Maddow's face that looks very much like what I'm feeling. Small consolation, but knowing that I'm not alone dulls the edge of the desolation, and gives me hope that maybe our side does have some presence, some representation, however miniscule, in the structures of power.