Lunatic Fringe
When dealing with wingnuts ... Remember the rule:
If they accuse someone of something, then they're already guilty of it.
A candidate accused of lifting whole lines from an Obama speech is just one of several headaches.
Also: 
What does it say about Sarah Palin that she can't speak even one sentence of correct English?
Maybe we should pass a law that in order to become President you need to be able to utter an entire sentence in correct English.Ruth Marcus on Sarah Palin:
Three unattractive Palin traits have, if anything, been amplified since the election: her unwillingness to buckle down and do the necessary preparation; her tendency to adopt what McCain adviser Steve Schmidt described as a "down is up and up is down" version of reality; and her enhanced sense of injury at the hands of what she oh so cleverly refers to as the "lamestream media."
Palin's appearance on "Fox News Sunday" pushed me over the edge.Yeah, I'm pretty sure blacks being kicked out of businesses wasn't a hypothetical. It was American History 101.
First, there was Palin on Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul, whose candidacy she had championed. Anchor Chris Wallace asked straightforward questions: Was Paul right or wrong in his view that the 1964 Civil Rights Act went too far in banning discrimination in private establishments? What did Palin make of the controversy? He got typically Palinesque answers, rambling and aggrieved:
"I think there is certainly a double standard at play here. When Rand Paul had anticipated that he'd be able to engage in a discussion, he being a libertarian-leaning constitutional conservative, being able to engage in a discussion with a TV character, a media personality, who perhaps had an agenda in asking the question and then interpreting his answer the way that she did, he wanted to talk about, evidently, some hypotheticals as it applies to impacts on the Civil Rights Act, as it impacts our Constitution. So he was given the opportunity finally to clarify, and unequivocally he has stated that he supports the Civil Rights Act."
Actually, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and other interviewers did not ask Paul about "hypotheticals." They asked whether he supported prohibiting private business owners from keeping blacks off their premises.
Is there a Sarah Palin vileness/absurdity threshold?
The very fact that Sarah Palin, an unaccomplished, inexperienced, idiot was chosen to be the vice presidential candidate of a rather old man, means that if there is a threshold, it's pretty high.From Greg Sargent:
A question for fellow reporters and editors: At what point do Sarah Palin's attacks and smears become so vile and absurd that they no longer merit attention? Is there such a point?
Palin, who has broken the mold in so many ways, has defied the laws of political and media gravity in another fashion: Despite the ever-mounting ridiculousness of her claims, she continues to get attention. This isn't so with other figures. Frequently those who traffic in absurdity and smears to get media attention keep upping the ante until their assertions become so grotesque and self-parodic that they are no longer newsworthy.
It's kind of like inflation: Keep printing more money and the value of it keeps dropping. That hasn't happened with Palin.
As long as Palin isn't an actual candidate for public office, at what point do we stop rewarding every statement from Palin, no matter how vicious or mendacious, with attention? Should there be such a point?
Even structural steel as a tolerance level - at some point if will crack ... will we?
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