NOW STARRING……Gunslinger Gidget – UPDATED

I get it. I really do. I understand the appeal of Repub VP candidate Sarah Palin:

It’s simple. She is the most compelling fictional character to come along in American politics in a very long time.

And she’s not just any fictional character. She’s Cinderella-with-a-snowmobile, David—or in this case, Denise—taking on the corrupt D.C. Goliaths while she cooks-up a pot of caribou stew with one hand and juggles a special needs baby with the other.

She’s Gunslinger Gidget goes to Washington.

Palin’s a walking chick flick, a one-woman girls’ empowerment movie—and yet double-boffo at the box office, because the main character is hot enough that she’s got guys feening for the film too.

Okay, yeah, our Governor Gidget (as my pal Marc Cooper calls her) is not equipped to be the President of the United States, but she could sure as hell play one on television.

Imagaine a spunky, one-time soccer mom who strides into the halls of power and stands up (as she repeatedly tells us) to all the good ol’ boys who are used to runnin’ things their way—first the good ol’ boys of Alaska, next the good ol’ boys on the Hill in creepy old Washington D.C. (Watch as crusty Senators melt in her wake and Nancy Pelosi swoons with envy.) After that, it’s on to stare down that hard-body, Georgia-invadin’ good ol’ boy of the KGB, Vladimir Putin, and that crazy-ass ol’ boy in Eye-ran, Ahmadinejad. (Back off, all you Mullahs in mumus! Sarah’s in town, and she’s packin’ tactical nukes! Make her day, baby!)

It’s another version of those movies that surface every five years or so about the not-as-dumb-as-she-looks blonde with good boobs and spring-o-later high heels who goes to Harvard and shows those Ivy League snobs a thing or two. Except that this flick has higher stakes and some hockey and hunting thrown in. (And in real life, Reese Witherspoon seems like a perfectly sensible woman who has never tried to persuade us that she’s ready to run the free world.)

In short, it’s a feel-good, slap-happy romp!

But fiction. Sorry.

UDATE: For more details, see Sunday’s New York Times profile of the Alaskan governor, a not-so-feel good woman who practices her own kind of cronyism, is known for vendettas, cooking inconvenient facts, and variously labels those who criticize her as “haters” and “bad people who are anti-Alaska.”

The push to pass off the fiction as fact will assuredly continue until November. For still more of a preview of coming attractions, here’s a clip from the text of Friday’s final segment of the Gibson/Palin interviews:

GIBSON: One of John McCain’s central campaign arguments, tenets of his campaign, is eliminating earmarks, getting rid of them. Are you with John McCain on that?

PALIN: I certainly am. And of course the poster child for the earmarks was Alaska’s, what people in the lower 48 refer to as the bridge to nowhere. First it was a bridge to community with an airport in southeast Alaska. But that was excessive. And an earmark — an earmark like that, not even supported necessarily by the majority of Alaskans. We killed that earmark. We killed that project…

[This was obviously discussed extensively by the post-Rovian coaches who told her she should continue to do exactly what she’s been doing: Listen, Sarah: Just keep powering down the road with that lie. Ride it like you’re driving a snow plow. You and the huz are good with snow-related vehicles, right? And if anybody tries to throw some pesky facts in your path, just motor right over the things and flatten those puppies like road kill.]

GIBSON: You have said continually, since he chose you as his vice presidential nominee, that I said to Congress, thanks but not thanks. If we’re going to build that bridge, we’ll build it ourselves.

[Ready, aim, flatten.]

PALIN: Right.

GIBSON: But it’s now pretty clearly documented. You supported that bridge before you opposed it. You were wearing a T-shirt in the 2006 campaign, showed your support for the bridge to nowhere.

[If the flattening fails and facts keep rising back up like the undead, toss out a “flash-bang,” you know, one a’ those smoke bombs the State Troopers sometimes use. (Sarah, you still on okay terms with the Troopers? Nevermind. Sore subject.) Smoke’s a great cover. We love smoke. See, here’s the thing: People might still see that something’s there, but they won’t have any idea what it is anymore and you can tell ’em it’s anything you want. Works like a charm, trust us. Used to do it on Meet the Press all the time. Russert—rest in peace—never caught on.]

PALIN: I was wearing a T-shirt with the Zip code of the community that was asking for that bridge. Not all the people in that community even were asking for a $400 million or $300 million bridge.

GIBSON: But you turned against it after Congress had basically pulled the plug on it; after it became apparent that the state was going to have to pay for it, not the Congress; and after it became a national embarrassment to the state of Alaska. So do you want to revise and extend your remarks?

[On the off chance that some fool STILL chases you after the smoke trick (unlikely, but it happens), abruptly reverse course and race full throttle TOWARD—instead of away—from any lingering but troublesome facts. Then proceed to bear hug those babies as if greeting family, like maybe your brother-in-law. (No? Okay. Pick another family member, but you get the point.) It confuses the hell out everybody. Plus, if you’re quick, you can choke the life out of any remaining facts while you’re at close range. Presto, no more facts. It worked for Cheney on Iraq, it’ll work for you.]

PALIN: It has always been an embarrassment that abuse of the ear form — earmark process has been accepted in Congress. And that’s what John McCain has fought. And that’s what I joined him in fighting. It’s been an embarrassment, not just Alaska’s projects. But McCain gives example after example after example. I mean, every state has their embarrassment. And, as I’ve said over and over, if Alaska wants that bridge, $300 million, $400 million dollars, over to that island with an airport, we’ll find a way to build it ourselves. The rest of the country doesn’t have to build that for us.

GIBSON: But you were for it before you were against it. You were solidly for it for quite some period of time…

PALIN: I was …

GIBSON: … until Congress pulled the plug.

[If facts continue, God forbid, to behave in a menacing fashion, back quickly away and drive randomly in another direction. Hey, babe, what do you think your candidacy was anyway? Yep. Another random direction.]

PALIN: I was for infrastructure being built in the state. And it’s not inappropriate for a mayor or for a governor to request and to work with their Congress and their congressmen, their congresswomen, to plug into the federal budget along with every other state a share of the federal budget for infrastructure.

GIBSON: Right.

PALIN: What I supported was the link between a community and its airport. And we have found that link now.

GIBSON: But you didn’t say no to Congress, well build it ourselves until after they pulled the plug. Correct?

[Now, while it’s very, very unlikely this will occur, if for some reason facts STILL come after you, here’s what you do: immediately commence driving in circles until everyone but you is noticeably dizzy. Got it? That’ step one…..]

PALIN: No, because Congress still allowed those dollars to come into Alaska. They did.

GIBSON: Well, but …

[Step two: Once dizziness is visible, drive back in the direction of the now-limp and woozy facts, re-embrace and claim that it was you who brung ’em to the party, then proceed to dance vigorously with facts while repeatedly calling out name of any elitist media within earshot in order to establish dominance. It’s like in a wolf pack; you got to make sure you’re the Alpha.

(And, if that doesn’t work, just shoot ’em from above, as we did with Joe Wilson. But why am I telling you this? You know all about aerial shooting, right?)]

PALIN: Transportation fund dollars still came into Alaska. It was our choice, Charlie, whether we were going to spend it on a bridge or not. And I said, thanks, but no thanks. We’re not going to spend it on the bridge.

And now obviously, Charlie, with the federal government saying, no, the rest of the nation does not want to fund that project. You have a choice. You either read the writing on the wall and understand okay, yes, that, that project’s going nowhere. And the state isn’t willing to fund that project. So what good does it do to continue to support something that circumstances have so drastically changed? You call an audible, and you deal in reality, and you move on. And, Charlie, we killed the bridge to nowhere and that’s the bottom line.

GIBSON: The state of Alaska, under OMB figures in 2008, got $155 million in earmarks for a population of 670,000. That’s $231 per person in Alaska. The state of Illinois, Obama’s state, got $22 per person. You got 10 times per person as much. How does that square with your reforms?

[Repeat above series of actions as often as is necessary.]

PALIN: We have drastically, drastically reduced our earmark request since I came into office.

GIBSON: But you still have multiple of any other state.

PALIN: We sure are — and this is what — you go out and you ask any Alaskan this. This is what I’ve been telling Alaskans for these years that I’ve been in office, is no more.

GIBSON: Governor, this year, requested $3.2 million for researching the genetics of harbor seals, money to study the mating habits of crabs. Isn’t that exactly the kind of thing that John McCain is objecting to?

PALIN: Those requests, through our research divisions and fish and game and our wildlife departments and our universities, those research requests did come through that system, but wanting it to be in the light of day, not behind closed doors, with lobbyists making deals with Congress to stick things in there under the public radar. That’s the abuse that we’re going to stop. That’s what John McCain has promised over and over for these years and that’s what I’m joining him, also, saying, you’re right, the abuse of earmarks, it’s un-American, it’s undemocratic, and it’s not going to be accepted in a McCain-Palin administration. Earmark abuse will stop.

Okay, enough with Gunslinger Gidget. Time to change the subject.