What makes Dunn’s effort, which involved extensive interviews with Palin’s friends, enemies, and disturbingly numerous disgruntled former followers so striking is that, unlike the Lamestream Media, he actually did some homework, and spoke to people who knew something about this kooky, vindictive, and ignorant woman.  Palin has left a trail of duplicity, betrayal, and ill-feelings in her wake since middle school, and always for the same reason; her pathological obsession that everything, and I mean everything, be all about her, all the time.

How could I possibly be surprised to learn that at age 13 Sarah Barracuda launched a four-year Mean Girls jihad on some newcoming girl whose crime was to be asked “out” by a boy who, unbeknownst to him, had already been chosen as Sarah’s future husband.  (Evident throughout the book, as it travels with Sarah, is that this Mormon-like obsession with breeding early and often is a new, and more than usually creepy element of right wing politics…. especially in corrupt, isolated shitholes like Wasilla, Alaska.  Teen motherhood is the new black in places that don’t believe in either evolution nor global warming, but do believe in abstinence, at least for others.)

Such magical thinking is again glaringly apparent when Sarah was running for Mayor of Wasilla, and said to a former (and typically regret-laden) supporter, “If I’m still here in this job in two years, then I’m quitting.  I mean, I better be moved on to something and better than that by then.”  The job she had in mind?  Not Governor, as the aide helpfully suggested might be a possibility someday.  President.  Seriously.  Of course, the sad part is that she got pretty frighteningly close,  thanks to nobody going up to Alaska to ask around.  The stories are multitudinous, and after the fiftieth one or so they fail to astonish; but the craziness has been there in plain sight for anyone willing to take a look.

One delicious part of the book is when Sarah Palin hooked up with a lot of understandably lonely and unattractive Republicans who had ventured up north for a Weekly Standard cruise (!), and the result was, unsurprisingly, a roomful of boners.  Fox’s Fred Barnes, who found her “exceptionally pretty,” and “unusually confident,” (yes, for one so dumb, but I digress…), said she had eye-popping integrity, which perhaps is Neocon-ese for a nice rack. Bill Kristol, a man not known for his prescience, much less sex appeal, gushed “I don’t know if I can make it through the next three months without her on the ticket.”  Make it he did, undoubtedly with the frequent help of Rosy Palm, and she did end up on the ticket.

Maybe Sarah thought the National Review would bring in a more attractive crop of wingnut-welfare suitors on its cruise, and more attention, but by this time she seems to be meeting more boats than a hooker at Fleet Week, and boy did the chickenhawk sailors love her every time….   When you’re being mooned over by Robert Bork, Victor Davis Hanson, and Dick Morris, Hell… even Rich Lowry might start to look good.  But they would all write glowingly about how she walked around in high heels, was a “real honey” with “movie star qualities.” None of these snobby and pretentious members or the righty  ”intelligentsia” noticed that she is a) bonkers, or b) an idiot.  In the cynical branding Republicans practice in lieu of actually selling a governing philosophy, Palin was perfect.  For their audience, she didn’t have to be an intellectual; all she needed was a nice set of ideas.  The crazier the better, as it turned out.

The Lies of Sarah Palin was published just after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and Palin’s disastrous and thoroughly discrediting”Blood Libel” rantings on Facebook afterward, but Dunn was unwilling to yet dismiss Palin as a political force, not for good of course, but reading it, I think I am.  While some sociopaths are able to achieve big if unworthy things, this gal is too dumb, lazy, and emotionally immature to do anything at all.  Her only real “accomplishment” from her half term governorship was finally extracting revenge on her former brother-in-law, a pursuit that took nearly all of her time for at least a year, and got her reprimanded by a bipartisan investigation.  Her famous gas pipeline will probably never happen, and her approval ratings touted (falsely) by the lovestruck cruisers as “near 90%,” now only gets above freezing on a good day.  Her highly theatrical and lie-ridden veto campaign against Alaska accepting stimulus funds (well, about seven percent of them; she’d already accepted the rest) was roundly overridden in the legislature just days before her ignominious (and “eye-poppingly” cuckoo) departure from office.  They may still call her “Governor” on Fox, but I’m certain that Alaskans, and most Americans, call her something else.

Of course, the predetermined Beck/Teabagger memes will have to be used; Socialism, Death Panels, Hitler, Woodrow Wilson, Government Takeovers, blah, blah, blah.   It would be inconvenient, you’d think then, that the Republican “Road Map,” as it were, presented by the naively direct Wisconsin wingnut Paul Ryan, has a whole lot of socialism in it (for rich people, natch), envisions steadily increasing Medicare cuts which will undoubtedly cause premature deaths, incorporates the worst aspects of both Hitler’s and Wilson’s “Internationalism,” and takes the most popular and enduring “Government Takeover” in US history, Social Security, and hands it over to Wall Street.  You’d be wrong.  For Republicans and their fawning cheerleaders in the media, down is up if Jim DeMint says so and FOX News unsurprisingly agrees.

The tinny Victrola of terrorism is of course going to be cranked up anew, to play scratchy recordings of 2002-2003 and somehow claim that we’re not clobbering the Constitution fast enough, not torturing people with sufficient eagerness, and not invading enough countries to Keep America Safe.  This angle may be dropped later because in early rollouts it only fooled Richard Cohen, a feat akin to convincing Tom Friedman that Lexuses are preferable to olive trees.  You heard it here at CHNN first, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the terror well will finally be recognized (by the voters, not the media…) as having run inconveniently dry in a country with 10% unemployment and an economy still collapsing.  Please make a note of it, Rudy.

Of course, the real power behind the GOP, money, has already set the stage, and as such one can expect a lot more unnatural couplings between square pegs and round holes to ensue.  The way to “create jobs” is to abandon environmental regulation, any vestigial remains of progressive taxation, and give more tax-free money to worthless heirs and heiresses.  Neither remarkably nor evidently as a joke, the strikingly unattractive and almost as untalented version of Paris Hilton, Steve Forbes, has a new book out, not entitled “I Got Mine, Fuck You,” but might as well have been, to emphasize these not very new ideas.  Frank Luntz has almost just absentmindedly trotted out the same old anti-government crap that was so successful in perpetuating our third-world health statistics for another decade or three, to stop desperately needed banking reform,  but will people really fall for the notion that Wall Street banks that every day continue to rob Americans blind ought not be regulated?  That’s some pretty heavy lifting, even for the Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

As they always do when they’re in a pickle, the GOP is making a lot of noise about teh ghey, this time about the long-overdue abandonment of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a policy so ridiculous on its face that I have trouble believing it’s been the law of the land for almost eighteen years, and touting the purported “uprising” against marriage equality, financed by a bunch of wealthy churches whose primary concern is avoiding reality, even when it drops on their curiously adorned heads.  But time has shown that since the cynical 2004 “victories” that resulted from gay-bashing have only driven more younger voters away from the GOP, and even if John McCain doesn’t listen to Cindy and Megan, America does, and has.

They think, of course, that they have a new big thing in the Teabaggers, which is the first sign of actual non-astroturf political activity on the right since Tomothy McVeigh, and they understandably don’t want to waste a development like that .  Sarah Palin surely didn’t…  she got half a wardrobe’s worth of Teabagger dough for mouthing vaguely intelligible Randian Haiku in Nashville, just tonight, so I’ll bet she’ll be wearing something extra pretty for the occasion.  Still, given that even some of the craziest Republicans, Michele Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn, finally slinked away from the teabaggers, realizing they were already so bought and paid for by Wall Street and the real corporate Death Panelists in the Health “industry” that they might not have much in common with the teabaggers after all. Rotten vegetables are notoriously unflattering to the complexion.   Naturally, they both disingenuously blamed the annoying “big government” intrusion of pesky “ethics” laws for their fortuitous absences from a crowd that in the end, evidently didn’t “share their values.”

No wonder Sarah Palin quit her part-time day job; this evolution-denier can gaily fleece her (socially) Darwinistic inferiors for all they’re worth and not be unduly shackled by silly old “big government” ethics.  The Republican Party, not so much.  The policies they have chosen and continue to fight for are the exact ones that caused and will only merrily perpetuate the very pain the Teabaggers are feeling, and their overconfident claim to Teabagger loyalty is already wearing alarmingly thin, given that their craven, almost Cheneyesque money-grubbing went on lurid display at about week three of their “revolution’s” existence.

I have previously criticized the Democrats for running against Bush, after  all this time and so many of their own failures, but the only thing stupider than that would be the Republicans running as “Bush, Only More So.”  I can’t decide which one I want to lose more.  Let the (h/t Jon Stewart) “thinnest kid at fat camp” win.

Critics of the prime minister’s relationships with young starlets and models immediately pounced on the announcement, charging it was a diversion from the many allegations of philandering by Italy’s leader and his promotion of beautiful if inexperienced women to political positions in his government.

An unnamed Berlusconi aide, while confirming Berlusconi’s intention to go to Alaska if things don’t work out with the G-8,  denied late Tuesday any connection between Gov. Palin and the various Italian women friends of the prime minister.

“Gov. Palin is a beauty, no doubt; the prime minister likes her.  A lot!  He thinks she has … how do you say it – a beautiful mind.  His women friends here are all beautiful too … all intellectuals …  yes!  He likes them.  He loves all women!  But that doesn’t mean there’s a connection,”  the aide said.  “Don’t make a meal of this hot air from the prime minister’s opponents.  Two plus two doesn’t equal five in this case.”

CHNN world correspondent Harlan Harrington has confirmed the visual sighting of a bright red private aircraft fueling at an obscure hangar, known informally as “SilvioAir” headquarters, on the outskirts of Rome’s Da Vinci Airport.  Harrington reports the aircraft appears large enough to seat a contingent of twenty-five, which could accommodate a small number of aides and dancers, or a medium-size harem with no more than two aides.  Harrngton noted the aircraft had several fuel tanks strapped under the wings, indicating, he said, non-stop intercontinental flight capability.

“It’s too early to tell if the prime minister plans to bolt the G-8 conference in L’Aquila,” Harrington said.  “But we’ve just established that this plane is registered to one of Berlusconi’s dummy media outlets – Bimbomanagna4 – and we think he might abandon the conference if push comes to shove.  We’re going to be watching this plane 24-7.”

A quick call today to Wasilla, Alaska by CHNN world headquarters intern Courtney Willows, failed to reach Gov. Palin, who late this afternoon remained boat-ridden and fully adorned in her state issue executive bib overall hip boots and T-shirt, somewhere on Lake Lucille.  “We’ll keep trying her cell phone,” Willows said.  “The nation sure wants to know how the governor might benefit from unsolicited advice from Mr. Berlusconi.”

Late reports prior to the convening of the G-8 meeting – which will include President Obama, and leaders from Great Britain, France, and Germany – indicate considerable annoyance with Berlusconi.  G-8 officials say planning for the summit by Italy has been dismal, with no real agenda.  They also criticized the choice of the small town of L’Aquila as the site for the meeting.

L’Aquila was devastated by an April earthquake.  Berlusconi said he thought the town would be a good place to hold the G-8, as a way to show “sobriety” to the thousands who remain homeless in the area.

G-8 leaders say the various contingents from member states will be housed in what they say are barracks; and as pressure has mounted prior to the summit, G-8 officials have been conducting secure “sherpa calls” among themselves, to compare notes.  Such tactics are rare among G-8 members, but some say it’s a last ditch effort to inject “purpose” into the meetings in Italy.

“We don’t know anything about these ‘sherpas’,” said Antonio Gustamente, another Berlusconi aide.  “It’s unusual to be sure, and everyone knows Italians don’t like to be pressured; so we are concerned.  And prepared!  We do know there are many fine sherpa delicacies in Alaska, and I can tell you the prime minister has been looking at Alaskan restaurants on-line, with an eye to a fruitful first meeting with Gov. Palin if things go south in L’Aquila.”

On another front, the juiciest one according to Berlusconi analysts, a so-called “cold war” may be breaking out among other women associated with the prime minister as the L’Aquila summit begins.

Reports over the week-end that Berlusconi had selected Mara Carfagna, a former topless model turned “equal opportunities” minister, to stand in for his estranged wife as hostess to the wives of G-8 summit leaders, has apparently created a major rift among other female ministers.

Maxim, the men’s magazine, has called Carfagna “the world’s sexiest politician,” and Berlusconi has tapped her to host First Lady Michelle Obama and other G-8 wives at major summit events, including, reportedly, an audience with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

Reports indicate Carfagna will be assisted by another member of Berlusconi’s cabinet, the education minister Maria Stella Geimini.

They are “staunch champions,” Berlusconi said last week, describing the appointments of the women, an apparent reference to the their support for him in his battles against allegations that he slept with a high-class call girl last year in his Rome apartment and that he has hosted scores of young women at his vacation villa in Sardinia, including two kissing lesbians, and scores of others, many in thongs, cavorting under outdoor showers, soaping themselves, each other, and others walking by.

However, two other women appointed to cabinet posts in the Berlusconi government say they have been snubbed and ignored as the summit approaches.

The two are Giorgia Meloni, the youth minister, and Stephania Prestigiacomo, the environment minister.

“I can’t see what the fuss is about,” Meloni said, as she faced reporters and appeared annoyed that she was asked to deny being snubbed over a G-8 posting.  Meloni said she had other G-8 duties to perform besides hosting wives of visiting ministers, walking away from rolling cameras in Rome.

“But truthfully, while I support the prime minister in all he does for the Italian peopke,” Meloni said, returning to the microphones with some irritation,  “I don’t know exactly what he can do for our country by leaving the summit and having a meeting with Gov. Palin.  She’s not an Italian woman, I can tell you that!  And the prime minister knows nothing about fly fishing or moose skinning or whatever.  So I don’t know what would be accomplished by him visiting there, unless I’m missing something.”

Prestigiacomo, the environment minister, told reporters she would be glad to do a crash study pf the migratory habits of salmon and moose if it would help the prime minister’s mission to Alaska.  “I’d like to go there.  With him,” she said.

A late call to Gov. Palin’s office in Juneau by CHNN intern Courtney Willows yielded little at press time.

“Her media aide says she doesn’t know where the governor is,” according to Willows.

“The aide cautioned that, with a pile of ethics complaints filed by opposition researchers, and pending fresh fish kill credit legislation, time was tight for a state visit by the leader of Italy just before the governor’s going away party, set for the end of this month,” Willows said.

Thus spake Sarah Palin today as she unexpectedly resigned as Governor of Alaska.  Demographically, she may be onto something.  If, say, 51% of the world had Down Syndrome, it’s entirely possible she could be elected Queen.  Moreso than under the current situation, anyway.  But such a demographic switch seems unlikely to come to fruition by 2012, no matter hard the Palin family and their followers work at it.  Thus, the only part of her lengthy, unfocused, mendacious, and patently ridiculous speech today that I came close to believing is a mathematical impossibility.  Maybe she crunched her numbers with her pals at the Creation Museum, where she will no doubt be giving frequent appearances between then and now.

After all, she knows her audience, and they don’t need no Down Syndrome to be idiots.  All she needs to do is shout “Liberal!” to her followers, and a thousand bullets will land wherever she pointed her manicured finger.  Nice work if you can get it.  But what her antics reveal is the frightening bloodlust and contempt for reality of her followers, to whom no crazy, lazy, and self-serving tantrum could ever be too much, and no bizarre conspiracy too farfetched, as long as the usual enemies were the real cause of it all…  She saw Glenn Beck approaching her in name recognition, Bill Kristol landing so  remarkably softly at the WaPoo,  and Karl Rove making so danged much more money, and suddenly it occurred to her that Alaska’s crony capitalism was cripplingly bush league, (not Bush League, mind you, where the money is strikingly better…), and when “Senior Fellow” positions were falling like rain on all these other discredited righties from the well-seeded clouds of wingnut welfare, she was doing something demonstrably wrong, and worse, counterproductive, by having a real job and doing it.  Way off message, Sister.  And as an Alaskan too, the poor thing had to fly all the time, and commercial was just getting old.  We can all feel her pain that way.

Of course, I’m merely parsing her obviously lie-filled words; one rule of Republican discourse is that rather than gaining anything from the plain text, one must always dig deeper into the smears (of people who know the truth), the lies (believe the opposite and you never go wrong; even the pathetic Harry Reid pointed this out once), and the veiled intentions, invariably cast as some  greater endeavor, which not unsurprisingly is made more difficult to accomplish by overwhelmingly negative public opinion and that pesky Constitution.  The much-needed skill of translating flat lies into some semblance of actual intent, however, honed over the Bush/Cheney/FOX News era, is now annoyingly widespread amongst ordinary Americans, if not Greta Van Susteren, so she might have made her speech shorter.  People with Down’s, you know, have notoriously short attention spans.

Happy Fourth, America, and I’m proud to announce that Democrats for Palin 2012, Park Avenue Headquarters, has just officially been established, right here in Little Beirut.  I promise not to drink all the proceeds.

UPDATE:  Not wanting to spoil my appetite, nor be tripped up by tight skirts and winks, I read only the transcript of Palin’s speech before I posted, and didn’t actually watch it until afterward.  Big Mistake.  I have never seen a woman so nuts; she makes Nicole Kidman’s character in “To Die for” look like Madeleine Albright.  The rushed, breathless delivery of a teenage kid explaining what happened to the car, telling her audience that due to some nefarious forces she had to quit her job, in this economy, halfway through, was simply too crazy and stupid to believe.  Is she going for the people who think Michele Bachmann is too much of a namby-pamby liberal? Yes.  My heavens, how the GOP has fallen.

Does that puff of smoke you saw in the bottom of the canyon on the “Road Runner” cartoons come to mind about now?  Yeah, me, too.