Written by Robert S. Becker   

Mercifully brief, this week's rousing Cheney-Palin-McCain food fight delivers more brash hijinks to liberals and Democrats than NBC's controversial, jingoist Olympic coverage. Really, Dark Vader takes on the Tundra Hussy with pinwheel-loaded McCain pulling up the rear? Summertime, and the punditry's easy. No doubt, after this merry episode in GOP dissension, we face months of Romney drudgery, slogging through a brittle convention, all the while deflecting Bain/tax/culture scandals until November.

Beyond the pleasure of the inexhaustible Palin farce, why shouldn't subtle ironists delight when the great demonic V.P. declares unfit, only four years later, a rogue V.P. pick fully ensconced on the trash heap? Ah, the grudge-filled Cheney gives Romney unsolicited V.P. advice while excoriating his arch-rival McCain. Did Cheney forget, by impugning the perennial victim -- Palin the growling pit bull -- he'd foment not just McCain gurgling but fusillades of Tea Party frenzy against "the GOP establishment"?

All Cheney did was affirm the incontrovertible national consensus: Sarah Palin is, was, and will always be demonstrably unqualified to be president. Or V.P. Or dogcatcher. How valuable: hindsight from the Dubya hindquarter now settles on the great "08 "mistake." You think? Palin's 17% "approval" last year barely topped BP's showing (16% for nature's nemesis-in-chief). But who cares when the rightwing fur flies? Mid-summer, news doldrums, and Mitt Romney veers between pathetic, deranged, and deadly dull, punctuated only by sparkling gaffes.

Lame Leading the Lame

And Sarah's ever defensive, poor-me victim's response was to blame (presumably senile) Cheney getting suckered (at this late date?) by a false, four-year old "lamestream press" narrative. What lames leading what lamestream? Would that detail a boob who knew nothing beyond Alaska, refused to learn, yet trusted her ordained, gut-driven mama grizzly fury? So, her indefatigable sugar daddy McCain again rushes in, the tragic dupe forever stuck defending Palin's folly. Rather than denying "the mistake," McCain reverts illogically to his irrelevant fray with Cheney over torture.

Nominally, Cheney's zinger was simple a Romney warning -- for Palin's no factor, even a GOP negative in most battleground states. Plus, the renegade hussy mauls the "GOP establishment" with withering disdain. The party of Cheney, dreaming of rightwing hegemony (White House, Pentagon, Supreme Court and House, maybe the Senate), dreads any wider division in the Rethug ranks. Only with strings and wire now do casino billionaires, Wall Street banksters, energy barons, libertarians, evangelicals, secessionists, militant nutcases, abortion-haters, the Romney shape-shifter and Romney skeptics unite.

And any such food fights, as they impact close Senate races, if not the presidency, make them about something. Woodrow Wilson once quipped, "Some men grow in office, and others merely swell." Today's midgets, like McCain and Cheney, shrivel into parodies of what decent politicians once were. Cheney hardly need advise Romney on caution. Excepting his arrogant blunders, the Mitt clone replicates Bush-Cheney's imperatives, reactionary policy and advisers.

Doubling Down, Cheap Shots

Pathetically, every time McCain must defend Palin simply for being herself, gone is all his maverick roguery, replaced by defiance of rationality and prudent election judgment, for defending the weak Tea Party Queen costs more than it gains nationally. It's not as if the barracuda's humiliating fiasco of a "narrative" taught her anything: she's dying to see Romney "go rogue" and pick the madcap, unstable Rep. Allen West (FL) type for V.P., then re-ignite wholly futile smears tying Obama to Rev. Wright, Marxists and radicals. OMG. Yes, the Palin victory package remains impugning Obama as an anti-American, African-based, subversive, socialistic shill. What, no birther rerun? Call the Donald.

Writing about Sarah Palin splits my readers, my friends, and frivolous critics, just as she divides her state, the country and the McCain legacy. Before Palin's legs, hips, and breasts dazzled McCain, he had enough credibility as war-hero, "maverick senator" and campaign reformer to win party nomination. Then along came the harpy and McCain will go to his grave (and beyond) defending not just this fiasco (per his own apologetic campaign manager) but any and all subsequent, loudmouth misbehavior she manufactures on cue.

Look, Sarah, you win the booby prize, our most polarizing, most disliked, most distrusted American politician. If FOX news didn't sustain your clownish trash-talk, the "lamestream media" would long ago have cast out your "narrative" as fish-wrap news. Your incredible disapproval numbers alone, even in badly suckered Alaska, disqualify you as political pundit -- for you know nothing you didn't fail to learn years ago. Perhaps you function as performance artist competing for the imposter hall of fame by riding the veneer of celebrity well past the pull date, even beyond the force of ridicule.

Not Just Hated by Dems?

What remains for this phony maverick is the ultimate in fabricated innocence. It's not just liberals, or Cheney, or McCain's staff who happily eviscerate Palin. This grizzly must defend her lair against the hurtful, evil torrent of "many, many comments from those within the GOP establishment." It's both comic and pathetic that she seems unaware of the inevitable, evolutionary termination from the unholy cross of lipsticked pit bull with mama grizzly. Narcissism, let alone mixed metaphors, reigns supreme over such madness, as fellow crazy Liz Cheney rushes in to her defense by defying her father, however for her still "the best VP ever."

Hey, Lizzie, guess what percentage of fellow citizens approved your "best ever" V.P. as he slunk from office: a staggeringly low 13 percent. By 2011, that inched up to 18%, as memories fade, comparable to Palin and BP. If there are more visibly divisive, less compassionate dangers to America plodding (and plotting) mischief than Palin and Cheney (Dick and Liz), they remain beyond my purview. That these two rightwing thugs are openly scuffling, batting whether our most disgraced, failed vice president merits attention when dumping on our most disgraced, half-time, ex-governor -- well, perfect for August politics.

That Palin's credibility since McCain defines a rock-bottom national reputation, that she won't be a telling factor in the Obama-Romney fisticuffs -- more good news. Let her muck about in backwater Tea Party Texas primaries. Go for it, bring it on: never retreat, just reload your powder-dry, obsolete musket and fire at will. Pop goes that weasel.