By BaxterWe cats are grateful to our friends over at The Huffington Post, who — in commenting on a recent Newsweek cover featuring the famous quitter from Alaska — have directed us to the immortal H.L. Mencken's obituary for William Jennings Bryan.
This dusty historical reference, we're sorry to say, continues to be relevant today. Because charlatans and frauds who cloak themselves in religion or righteousness are, alas, always with us. Newsweek's cover girl is just the latest example.
It becomes crystal clear when you take a key paragraph from Mencken's Bryan obit; then, substitute "Palin" for "Bryan," and the present tense for the past:
"Palin is a vulgar and common woman... She is ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. Her career has brought her into contact with the first men of her time... It's hard to believe that she has been received in civilized societies as a high officer of state. She seems only a poor clod... deluded by childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. She is a peasant come home to the dung-pile...
"The job before democracy is to get rid of such canaille. If it fails, they will devour it."
We cats PURR. We rarely post directly on Palin because we don't consider her worth our time. But this, we couldn't resist.
(IMAGE: "Inherit the Wind," United Artists, 1960)
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