September 7, 2015--Sarah Palin: No Help Wanted

While the rest of us are taking the day off, Sarah Palin is busy looking for a job.

The one she has picked out for herself is to be Energy Secretary in the next president's cabinet.

Donald TRUMP's.

Yes, his.

Interviewed Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, Palin said she's ready for that "because energy is my baby: oil and gas and minerals, those things that God has dumped on this part of the earth for mankind's use instead of us relying on unfriendly foreign nations."

"Dumped"?

They have admired each other for a long time (I bet) and TRUMP has said he'd "love" to have Palin in his cabinet since she is a "really special person." Not just a special person but a "really" special one.

Sarah assured host Jack Tapper that "It would be a short-term job" because she would soon be shutting down the department.

Or is it Rick Perry who'd eliminate it? With all these candidates I get confused so easily.

But between now and then, she gushed, wouldn't it be "really great [really great] to have someone who knows energy and is so pro-responsible development to be in charge."

She failed to mention that as The Donald's secretary she would be succeeding two Nobel Prize winning physicists and that the department, among other things, is responsible for building and storing our nuclear weapons. Among her favorite things.

I can just see Tina Fey warming up for another season of SNL.

April 24, 2014--The Clinton Grandchild

Last week, at a public event attended by her mother, Chelsea Clinton announced that she is with child. As it played out in the press, she might well have said she is with grandchild.

A member of the media in the room where Chelsea shared the good news asked if it's expected birth date was politically timed.

Chelsea pretending she did not understand, smiled and shrugged. But then added that she looks forward to her daughter or son growing up "in a world with so many strong female leaders."

It was obvious what her smile and wink suggested. At her side, mom glowed.

The fact that that question was raised was telling, as is my snarky tone.

What should have been about a blessed event (there I go again) at the moment of the announcement and subsequently was treated as a political calculation. From the relatively-gossip-free New York Times to Rush Limbaugh to just about everyone on Fox News it was smirkingly assumed that it was yet another example of the Clinton's doing everything they could to advance their personal agenda. In this case, Chelsea arranging the timing of her pregnancy to help Hillary secure the nomination and then, with a grandchild on her hip, be elected president.

Shades of Sarah Palin moving about the country with special-needs grandchild Trig (for trigger--get it) schlepped along to help shape her aw-shucks, soccer-mom image.

And with Hillary still lacking the likeability factor (remember Obama during the 2008 campaign with  shrug of his own saying she was "likable enough") what better way to humanize her?

With politics becoming fully political theater and a form of mass entertainment--who doesn't wish Herman (Ducky-Ducky) Cain will run again next year--it is not beyond reason that timing the birth of a child-grandchild could be as stage managed as adhering to talking points and TV ads produced by friendly PAC groups. With appearances on the Tonight Show, the Daily Show, Colbert Report, and SNL essential.