My apologies to everyone for neglecting my blogging duties.  Now I realize, too late, that the seemingly endless source of pleasure derived from watching the GOP implode may disappear in one ginormous explosion of fireworks and Palinfreude (Yes, Skippy, I coined that word.)

Other than getting elected to the Senate, just what will comedians do with the Queen of Alaska getting out of politics? This is the first time I’ve seen only one story on Memeorandum.com.  From the moment we all heard her name for the first time, Sarah Palin has been one big bag of jaw-dropping whackadoodle.  Her exit from official duties (jury’s out on continued meida abuse) was no different. Her resignation speech was as incoherent and void of logic or facts as anything she ever said on a national stage.

Naturally, this is good news for John McCain (who should be ashamed for letting this woman get anywhere near the White House). 

Rachel Sklar has a nice rundown of L’afarre Palin and her 10 months of WTF, as does just about everyone, everywhere.  My sense, however, is that now that she won’t be distracted by the pesky duties of governing Alaska, she can now devote her time to what she and her family really believe is imporatant — faux outrage and scathing screeds against trumped-up delusional crap, 24/7.

Shark reference brought to you by the cloistered Ladies of Perpetual Outrage and Publicity Hounds. (Yes, that was a dog metaphor. Sue me. How appropriate G.H.W Bush - 41 - is jumping out of a perfectly good airplane again today.)

I guess there aren’t any important issues to discuss, slow news week and all. Best to dive head on into the Politics of Grievance the tabloid media prefers. Von Brunn would approve.  We can talk about North Korean Nukes and hostage journalists, Iranian elections shaping the Middle East for the next decade, health care, the rise of right-wing violence, the economy or those two pesky wars when we don’t have Sarah Palin’s hurt feelings to console.

Maybe I should take heart, that this is merely part of the death rattle of the conservative movement.  But better minds than mine are still trying to grip with the right wing mentality — and the examination of the Paranoid Style of American Politics has been going on for a long time with no satisfactory answers or effective strategy to bury it.  This description of the phenomenon from 1964 applies to rages against the Illuminati as well as rants against the fictional Liberal Fascist ghosts: (H/T Jay Rosen)

America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners as of old but major statesmen who are at the very centers of American power. Their predecessors had discovered conspiracies; the modern radical right finds conspiracy to be betrayal from on high.

P.S. Hey Steve. Palin should stay “above the fray?” You’re hilarious dude. How would she get any airtime that way?

Today’s toll: 11 Iraqis Killed, 23 Wounded

It took maybe 25 seconds for Joe Scarborough to completely contradict himself on what kind of machinations the CIA is capable of this morning, all as MSNBC’s answer to Alan Colmes vapidly stared, mouth agape, offering platitudes and meek objections until finally stammering agreement with Joe’s final statement of utter nonsense.

Media Matters has the video and with regards to whether the CIA selectively leaks classified information, they simply ask: Which is it, Joe? Do they or don’t they? [Elapsed time 1:11]

Here’s my quick transcript:

JOE: Well, uh, anyway. In 2002 they would have been irresponsible if they hadn’t asked that question [re: Iraq connection to 9/11] along with a thousand other questions, which they did. But to say that, that was the purpose. No. The purpose was after 9/11 figuring al-Qaeda out.

And to a bigger point. A lot of people in the CIA thought George Bush politicized them. Did you see what they did to George Bush over five years? They’d leak this document. They’d leak that document. And they bled him dry. You do not politicize the CIA. Bush learned it. And Nancy Pelosi’s learning it now.

MIKA: I do so think that the work of these people and…in the wake of 9/11 should be respected, and even honored in some ways. But I will say for balance and not for argument that the CIA is not above question and rebuke.

HAROLD FORD, Jr.: I would agree with that.

JOE: Well sure. We all agree with that. Sadly though, all of the attacks…

MIKA: 9/11 happened…on…

JOE: All of the attacks have come from the left in this debate. Because guess what? CIA agents are patriotic. They don’t leak classified information, but their enemies do.

MIKA: I’m with you.

Astonishing what it must be like to live inside Joe’s head, effortlessly filling three hours of the “liberal” cable news network with such wisdom day after day — and then play on ABC radio for a couple of hours too, all while Twittering.

What a douche.

I take it when Joe says only the CIA’s enemies leak classified info, he includes Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney on that list for when they burned Valerie Plame.

One question remains. Why is Mika Brezinski there at all when Joe can argue with himself for hours?