The rapture is coming...

POSTED BY JHW22

... and I don't mean the Biblical one.

I am more confident that Sarah Palin is going to announce her candidacy on Saturday -- the calculated day of judgment.

And although I agree with this don't sell her short take by PoliticsUSA, I still stand by my conclusion that she doesn't *want* to be President because she doesn't want to have to make decisions; she wants to make money. Otherwise, she wouldn't have left her last elected position half-way through.

But PoliticsUSA nails the complexity of Palin on the head. People who say we should just ignore her or people who say let her run, ignorantly make assumptions that are not worth risking, in my opinion. I have a deep resentment for Sarah Palin because of what she created during the '08 campaign. I still remember, with a great deal of fear and resentment, how she enabled and validated the worst of our stupid, racist, xenophobic, vengeful Americans and gave them a power they hadn't had in quite some time. She gave permission for people to speak about Obama as if he would be the worst person for President based on shallow-minded guilt by association, declarations of otherness, allowances to actually consider bringing guns to rallies, and to hate an entire religion the President isn't even part of.

In her actions, she also brought out my own hate. As much as my son and I try to avoid that word, I cannot find another way to describe my feelings for her. She created a monster in society in people like me as well as in people with a fear of a smart black man who had the potential to change America for the better. They wanted desperately to hate a person who is good so they believed lies and distortions. I hate Palin because I am smart enough to know that her form of manipulation is bad for America. The falsehoods that Obama is bad for America are easily debunked time and again. But the reality that Palin has contributed NOTHING to the discourse that is correct, insightful, inspiring of progress, or even beneficial to families with special needs children, is in no way disputable. You can't compare the results of the man she wants America to fear and hate to her work. She is in the negative column for results and if she gets a chance to run, she will not add anything for the nation to consider as viable options for results. Instead she will campaign on vitriol and lack of ideas.

And a part of America wants to feed on that.

I want her off the stage. I want her to go home and never be seen or heard from again. But that ain't gonna happen. She wants to be heard and ignoring her will NOT make her go away. Ignoring her makes her more desperate for attention.

Laughing her off as the perfect opponent to Obama because he'd wipe the floor with her shamefully ignores that she will do great damage along the way AND we will lack the benefit of a true, smart and beneficial dialogue between two reasonable candidates.

As a liberal, I get annoyed when fellow liberals want the 2012 campaign to be easy: Obama vs. a Loser. I don't. I want our country to have the two best options to choose from. I want the campaign to be hard because the debate is complex, not because we're fighting off crazy birther and racist and hateful crap.

I want America to be better. And it will not be better with Palin in any way. But I know she will insist on being part of the show.

So liberals need to wake up and start dealing with her. Quit brushing her off. Quit dismissing her as irrelevant. Because, like it or not, accept it or not, she IS relevant. She is as relevant as cancer. It's a hated reality that can't be ignored.