I liked her better when she was winking and protecting us from Putin

So the McCain camp, or depending on who you believe: a rogue Sarah Palin, decided that instead of just letting he embarrass them in dribs and drabs they'd let her do it in big chunks. By that I mean, policy speeches. First up on the shame train: children with disabilities. Now this should have been a layup for her, she actually has a child with disabilities and should at least understand the issue on a fundamental level and everyone likes the idea of fully funding special needs programs. So of course after starting off with plans to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and improve early identification and treatment of autism (somehow despite their call for a total spending freeze), it devolved into typical stupidity about earmarks, which she said was stealing money from disabled kids.

Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.

Of course fruit fly research is integral to nearly all genetic research and that the study of fruit flies has also been used for other autism research and “revolutionized” the study of birth defects. So her big policy speech on children with disabilities and she ends up attacking and denigrating the very research that seeks to, and has, led to dramatic advances in the treatment, diagnosis, and understanding of children's disabilities. Slow golf clap everyone, she doesn't even understand basic issues that deal specifically with her own children. I'm going to miss this walking embarrassment when McCain loses, I really am. She gonna go back to Alaska and get indicted for illegally firing some janitor for wearing too much brown and we're gonna miss all her wisdom and charm. Ah well, there's always hope for her resurgence in the 2012 primaries.