Sarah Palin’s recent appointment as a Fox news pundit speaks volumes about the extent to which she will preach to the converted as she prepares to run for president in either 2012 or 2016. Even if she isn’t truly serious about winning, she knows she can write a book about it.

The Tea Party movement, which held its first annual convention in Nashville last weekend, has benefitted from the type of publicity that only someone like Sarah Palin can generate.  In her keynote address, Palin made all of the usual noises. However, all of that has obviously been overshadowed by the sheer hilarity of her making, and using, notes written on her hand, in the same speech that she criticised President Obama for using a teleprompter. It’s the kind of stuff you really couldn’t make up. Priceless. Who are her advisers? Someone must’ve been fired. It beggars belief that a vice president candidate in the occasionally called ‘youtube election’ didn’t consider that that would be noticed once the close ups were scrutinised. 

She may yet try and find some way to blame it on the liberal elite media or whatever she calls it. The same media who are always trying to catch her out with soul searching, shades of grey questions like: “what newspapers do you read?” That was a hard one. But credit where it’s due. She was able to poke fun out of herself by writing: ‘Hi Mom’ on her hands and displaying it prominently at a rally for Texas Governer Rick Parry after the story broke.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the fact that her ability to make a fool of herself in public is almost unparalleled in modern politics. Dubya, and perhaps Silvio Berlusconi, are the only other modern politicians that come close. Not good company.The mickey taking by White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs, no doubt approved from higher up the food chain, is similarly priceless. 

The Tea Party members must be hoping that all of the negative attention focused on Palin doesn’t lead to closer scrutiny of the other speakers at the Grand Ole Opry Hotel. They might stumble across vaguely prominent Republican Tom Tancrdeo who bemoaned that America was being ruined by the “cult of multiculturalism” before hinting that Obama was only elected because various old school methods used in the segregated South to prevent blacks from voting are no longer used. Serious stuff.

Make no mistake, while there are plenty of reasons to criticise Obama, as there are any politician, these are the people who simply can’t stand the thought of a black man being president. The fact that an estimated third of Tea Party members are ‘birthers’ – the lunatics who insist Obama wasn’t born in America and is therefore ineligible to be president – says it all.

Ultimately, their extremism will just render the Republicans unelectable. Therefore, as odious as her politics are, it’s almost worth Palin running for President just for the inevitable comedy value. Tina Fey must have her fingers crossed.


Russell Myrie is currently working on a new book.