Mud Wrestling.

Say it ain’t so, Caribou Barbie! Sarah Palin’s folksy schtick that pretends to put a soft candy shell on her poisonous, hard center is increasingly intolerable. The robotic pit bull announced at a rally on Saturday that “the high heels were on, and the gloves were off,” to a cheering crowd of apparent imbeciles. Yes, imbeciles. One would have to have the IQ of Double Bubble to buy into the toxic behavior, speech and character of Governor Palin.

During her speeches over the weekend, the dead-eyed striver insinuated to her adoring acolytes that Obama doesn’t like America the way “you and I” like America, and how he “pals around” with terrorists. Fortunately, that attack on Obama’s pretty much non-existent association with William Ayers, a radical from the Vietnam era (when Obama was a child), has been largely criticized. But what do you think she really meant by separating the “anti-America” Obama from good Americans like us? She wants to continue to try to paint him as “other,” something unfamiliar and undesirable, un-American: black. It’s a not-so-subtle way to remind anybody who might be on the fence that “hey, I bet you have some deep-seated prejudices you might be fighting against – let me give you a ‘reason’ not to fight them.”

Why can’t she and her senile grandpa stick to talking about the positive changes they see for this country? Because they don’t have anything to separate themselves from the Bush administration, so they are reduced to revolting character assassinations on their rival. And in that, McCain has found a willing mouthpiece. Palin will do anything to ensure that she and McCain make it to the White House, because it’s herself she envisions ruling the roost on Pennsylvania Avenue. So she parrots her attack lines and her 3 speaking points on energy, health care, and how Obama’s tax increases will ruin the economy, then gets on another plane to do it again.

It will be interesting to see how the “gloves off” declaration of the old man and the ingénue plays out in the next few polls. Right now, Obama appears to have a 100-point lead on the electoral vote map, but the Republicans have shown time and again that Americans seem to like to get down in the mud with their politicians. Hopefully, Obama can continue to temper it by sticking to how he can improve our country, but if he wants to throw in a well-timed “Keating 5” reference, well, that’s OK with me.