In his endorsement of Barack Obama--a bit of a surprise, given his politics--Christopher Hitchens saves some of his most potent venom for the GOP's vice-presidential nominee:
[T]he only public events that have so far featured [McCain's] absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience.[snip]
I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to [Gov. Sarah Palin] just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party's right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama's position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.
Ouch!
