Huff Post: Sarah Palin - The anti-Susan Boyle. Looks good. No talent.

[Captain Hilts]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-gurvitz/the-audacity-of-dopes_b_359454.html

She's the anti-Susan Boyle. She's physically appealing. But she can't fucking sing.

Once upon a time in America there was at least a tangential relationship between fame and talent. Actors could act. Writers could write. Singers could sing. Of course, there were always freaky novelty acts, but they were in the sideshow, not the main arena. But now we live in the world of "reality stars" -- individuals with little discernible talent beyond a hunger for self-promotion so insatiable that they allow cameras into their private lives to document their personal failings, which then gets fobbed off as entertainment to a voyeuristic public. Infamy has become the new fame. Reality shows the venue for aspiring media monsters to strut the stuff they imagine they've got. A place for Gosselins and Kardashians to wallow in their 15 minutes and, once there, claim it as a right of entitlement.

But now, out of the west, or northwest to be precise, has come a relatively new phenomenon: the reality politician - Sarah Palin. A novelty act governor who was plucked from obscurity and placed on the national stage. A campaign gimmick. A Hail Mary pass by a veteran politician so desperate to win he would try to fob off a grinning dumb belle as a Vice Presidential candidate. Someone who proved not just in those few short months, but since, that she would never let her ignorance get in the way of her ambition.

And, yet, despite her ridiculous campaign performance and subsequent lack of ability to stand up and take responsibility for her own shortcomings, once again we have to endure the interviews, and the endless news reports about the interviews, during her battleground state book tour, along with the Republican cheerleader chant of "underestimate her at your peril."

[ElboRuum]

1. I would never underestimate Sarah Palin

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a runner-up beauty queen with attentionitis and no discernable talent is just a runner-up beauty queen with attentionitis and no discernable talent.

I think I estimate her quite accurately. She appeals to the lower quartile and repulses everyone else.

[Captain Hilts]

2. The fact that she is where she is shows how low expectations are. Our own Vladimir Zhirinovsky. nt

[Raschel]

3. The "looks good" part is fading quickly. She looked awful on the Barbara Walters

interview. The make up was very thick.

[Captain Hilts]

4. I assume the make up was done by Walters' crew. But, yes, how long will her looks last?

[Raschel]

5. She looked bad. Had on as she put it, "a trough of make up"

[Captain Hilts]

6. TV folks needlessly do that to a lot of women. They come away looking like candles. nt