Sarah Palin

I'm English, I'm intending to remain so and I live in the USA. I am not a citizen, but I do pay taxes and that - whatever some Americans think - at least allows me to air an opinion on the current political process.

Sarah Palin, whatever her abilities and her real skills as a politician, is a satirists dream. Tina Fey's caricature of her on SNL is very, very funny. So funny that you start to wonder whether it's all a bit too easy. People are saying she's dangerous; I've been invited to join a group on Facebook that claims she's the most dengerous woman in the Western world, or somesuch hyperbole.

I don't agree that she's dangerous. The reflex of the American political system is to Fearmonger as soon as something unexpected happens. We're seeing it with the Right's insistent harping about Barack Obama's links to "unrepentant domestic terrorists" and "extremists", and with a variety of people drawing undue attention to the possibility that there are root vegetables (long the bane of Vice Presidents) smarter than Sarah Palin.

Fine. She's not bright. We were spoiled by President Bartlett.

She is also far too easy to satirise. I don't think it's a good idea to have politicians who are this easy to make fun of.

Not because we shouldn't satirise our politicians. That's our right, and as an Englishman I have come to regard it as a sacred trust. We put them in power and we should do our utmost to remind them of this at every single opportunity to keep them honest and humble. They do not deserve our respect or admiration, they need to be called on every decision and every utterance, until putting the interests of the people ahead of their own becomes second nature.

Nope, it's because we shouldn't be thinking about the personalities in this election at all.

The human race is, and this is a technical term so brace yourselves, in the shit.

I could take the time to rattle off the things that are looming over us right now, but if you watch the news (oh please, do watch the news!) you already know what those things are.

OK, if you're an American, please watch something like CNN or somewhere with international news, instead of depending on Fox and Local news.

Anyway. You should know what's looming over us. Given that all this stuff is definitely looming, but has not yet reached the "oh *^$@!!!" point where it tips over and becomes a doom, we need to know what our darling politicos are going to do about it. I haven't heard too much about that, as yet.

I feel we should be told.