On Friday afternoon, as metaphor death vessel/creature that lives on only 30% of the oxygen it takes to keep humans alive Sarah Palin alerted the world that she was leaving her gubernatorial post with a year and a half to go, we sat in front of the TV gleefully wondering what you wondered: What in the hell is the other shoe that is going to drop? (And, why does Palin’s real, verified Twitter account feel like a fake one?) While we’re still waiting for answers, we’d like to direct you to Todd S. Purdum’s piece on Palin in Vanity Fair this month. For one, it’s a great divining rod for use in trying to, finally, figure out just what the hell is wrong with Sarah Palin:

More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.

But also, CAN WE GET A WHAT-WHAT FOR PHILLY IN THE HOUSE, YO?!?!?

An early rehearsal effort in Philadelphia found 20 people sitting in a stifling room with hundreds of sample questions on note cards. Palin just stared down, disengaged, non-participatory.

Ah yes, those were heady times. Truly. And while it might not be fair for Philly to take credit for this whole scene, described above — surely Palin being completely out of her element, suffering from a raging narcissistic personality disorder and also apparently hating learning/facts of any kind (as the Purdum piece reveals) probably also had something to do with it — it’s nice to know that somehow, some way, we played our own little part in it all.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 11:58 am.