Palin Interrupted

George W. Bush’s phony cowboy routine never played well abroad. Outside the protective bubble of the mainstream US media, he looked to be exactly what he was: a fake, posturing, inarticulate ignoramus. The whole swaggering high noon ‘wanted dead or alive’ bullshit played right into the most cartoonish stereotypes that foreigners have of Americans. It might get votes in the Bible Belt or at the Daytona 500, but your average German or Russian or Brit doesn’t find it too appealing. Sarah Palin, W’s intellectual and spiritual heir, is learning a similar lesson. Redneck chic is effective in places like Oklahoma or Arizona, and it gets media twits like Chris Matthews all moist in the groin area, but it just doesn’t sell in more civilized climates:

Sarah Palin wants to show to the Republican right that she is the true keeper of the Ronald Reagan flame by meeting the late president’s closest ally on the world stage.

A meeting with Margaret Thatcher in the centenary year of Reagan’s birth would be the perfect way of launching her bid for the Republican nomination for the 2012 US presidential election.

This is what Palin told Christina Lamb in the Sunday Times:

I am going to Sudan in July and hope to stop in England on the way. I am just hoping Mrs Thatcher is well enough to see me as I so admire her.

But …

It appears that the former prime minister has no intention of meeting the darling of the Tea Party movement. Andy McSmith reported in the Independent this morning that Palin is likely to be “thwarted” on the grounds that Thatcher, 86, rarely makes public appearances.

It would appear that the reasons go deeper than Thatcher’s frail health. Her allies believe that Palin is a frivolous figure who is unworthy of an audience with the Iron Lady. This is what one ally tells me:

Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.

As awful as she is, old battle axe Thatcher won’t give credibility to young(ish) charlatan Palin. I suppose you can file this under “even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in awhile” or “still the Greeks to our Romans”.