I know I probably shouldn’t be writing this since Sarah Palin is set to become a private citizen again and thus, above criticism, but there have been multiple times in the past week in which I read/heard a Palin story that had me shaking my head thinking “What a $@%& dumbass”.

Case in point, the leaked email exchange between Palin and McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt over Todd Palin’s association with the Alaska Independence Party :

Palin blasted out an e-mail with the subject line “Todd” to Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis and senior advisor Nicolle Wallace, copying her husband on the message (all of the e-mails are reprinted below as written).

“Pls get in front of that ridiculous issue that’s cropped up all day today – two reporters, a protestor’s sign, and many shout-outs all claiming Todd’s involvement in an anti-American political party,” Palin wrote. “It’s bull, and I don’t want to have to keep reacting to it … Pls have statement given on this so it’s put to bed.”
. . .
Schmidt hit “reply to all” less than five minutes after Palin’s e-mail was sent. “Ignore it,” he wrote. “He was a member of the aip? My understanding is yes. That is part of their platform. Do not engage the protestors. If a reporter asks say it is ridiculous. Todd loves america.”

This clear cut response from the campaign’s top dog carried an air of finality, but it did not satisfy Palin. She responded with another e-mail, adding five more names to the “cc” box, all of whom traveled on her campaign plane.
. . .
Clearly irritated by what he saw as Palin’s attempt to mislead her own campaign and apparently determined to demonstrate that the ultimate authority rested with him, Schmidt put the matter to rest once and for all with a longer response to everyone in the e-mail chain.

“Secession,” he wrote. “It is their entire reason for existence. A cursory examination of the website shows that the party exists for the purpose of seceding from the union. That is the stated goal on the front page of the web site. Our records indicate that todd was a member for seven years.”

What kind of fool lies to their own campaign manager?! Schmidt’s job was to lie for Palin, yet she was such an amateur that she really thought she could bullshit a bullshitter.

Then there’s this doozy from her recent “Oh, I didn’t know the media would be here!” fishing trip-cum-press conference (via Steve Benen):

As to whether another pursuit for national office, as when she joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the race for the White House less than a year ago, would result in the same political blood sport, Palin said there was a difference between the White House and what she had experienced in Alaska. If she were in the White House, she said, the “department of law” would protect her from baseless ethical allegations.

“I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we’ve been charged with and automatically throw them out,” she said.

There is no “Department of Law” at the White House.

Where the heck would someone get the idea that there’s a “department of law” that protects the executive branch? Did she sleep through the 90s? It’s one thing for Palin to think the Vice President is “in charge of the U.S. Senate“, but this is dumb, even for her.

Yeah, I’ll admit that writing about Palin is fun (her speech on Friday was a surrealist masterpiece that stands alongside the works of Luis Buñuel), let’s not forget that she almost became the Vice President of the United States. Dick Cheney was evil, but at least he had a post-Schoolhouse Rock understanding of how our government works. The thought of Sarah Palin being one of the most powerful people on Earth is enough to turn your hair grey with fright.