Sarah Palin and the Worship of Ignorance

I often wonder how some people gain the level of ignorance/insanity demonstrated by many on the ultra far right. Having been raised in a family that valued education and knowledge, the worshippers of ignorance leave me baffled - and often frightened as I wonder what bizarre psychological or emotional flaw makes them worship and down right revel in ignorance. Sarah Palin is a leading case in point, but Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell are cut out of the same cloth. Ditto for the majority of the Christianist and Tea Party crowd, which while often pretending to uphold Christianity act in a decidedly un-Christian and hate-filled manner. Richard Cohen has a column in the Washington Post that looks at Sarah Palin - who I view as a study in mental derangement. Aiding Ms. Palin, of course, is a MSN that lacks the courage to do its homework and expose her lies. Here are some highlights:
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The mind of the demagogue is a foreign country. It has a strange culture, enemies that only the natives can see, a passion about the ridiculous and a blowtorch kind of sincerity that incinerates logical thinking. On Sunday, the custodian of one such blowtorch was on Fox News. I am speaking, of course, of Sarah Palin.
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A Palin presidential candidacy, Politico tells us, would give the GOP establishment a near-fatal case of hives. The leadership generally considers her to be both unelectable and uneducable. (She seems hardly better informed than when she was a lone sentry, binoculars trained on nearby - and forewarned - Russia).
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With conservative Republicans, 55 percent think she's qualified to be president - and among Tea Party types, she wins by acclamation. The nomination, please. John McCain's little joke is turning out not to be so funny. In choosing Palin as his running mate, he set a standard for political recklessness that I hope will never be bettered.
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The fierce stupidity of this woman is hard to comprehend. It is the well from which she draws her political sustenance. . . . . The Republican establishment, so supine when McCain made his choice and so gleeful when Palin attacked Democrats, cannot get this particular genie back in the bottle. Palin has become a force, and anyone who watched her Sunday had to conclude that she might well run for president. The polls say she can't win. I betcha Palin thinks she can't lose.