Old piranha pants has strong grip

Published Monday, September 22, 2008

Got a message for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Hey, lady. How ya doing? Me too. It’s going around. Listen, the couch is over there and you might want to lie down and take a Zen moment to get over your bad self. You had a nice run: your moment in the sun, complete with an SNL skit featuring your doppelganger, Tina Fey, but now the honeymoon is over and you should moose up and use this quiet time to devise an actual stance in lieu of a pose. I’m sorry to be the one to have to say this, but you are SO earlier-this-month. It’s your partner, John McCain, who’s back in the news. And not in what you call your good way.

His iron grip on what is generally regarded as reality slipped like the manual transmission on a Model T Ford with a faulty handbrake parked on a San Francisco hill facing up. He’s reverted to his pre-convention state of fumbling and foundering and flummoxing and falling into a fevered form of flabbergast. And it’s that nasty old economy that’s the piranha in his pants biting his big white furry butt. Again.

Earlier this year he said he didn’t know much about it. And it’s not that hard to believe him. If he could point out three distinct differences between Lehman Brothers and the Jonas Brothers, I’d be as shocked as a giraffe on a glass escalator after too many fermented Blackberries that the Arizona Senator either did or didn’t invent. You might say he takes an arm’s length approach to the economy. You might also say that arm length is extended enough to qualify for frequent flyer miles.

It was drinking the Daily Gallup Kool-Aid that transformed Dr. Unconcerned into Mr. Proactive. But even with the makeup and the rubber mask, the role still seems a bit off-kilter on a man who is so notoriously free market that he escorted the French philosopher Laissez- Faire out of range of the security cameras, fed him a handful of roofies, then locked him in the evidence room behind a file cabinet wrapped in a pile of piano blankets.

Responding to the recent Chernobyl-sized melt down on Wall Street, the Bush Successor Wannabe insisted that, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong,” demonstrating a cluelessness you don’t normally associate with folks still in possession of a pulse, or not related to one of the judges on “So You Think You Can Dance.” But totally in line from a guy not sure of how many houses he owns. And I have a quick question here: When you own seven houses, how big do your pants pockets need to be to accommodate all your keys? He should do what I always do: Trade four houses for a hotel.

McCain jumped off the De-Regulation Express so fast, that Jamaican Bolt guy probably tried to buy his shoes. His cure for what ails us calls for empanelling a blue ribbon study group like the 9/11 Commission, sounding like reform the same way that a pneumatic jack- hammer sounds like a dial tone. He put off proposing concrete solutions, such as equipping tourists with steel umbrellas to repel falling hedge fund brokers, but maybe he’s squirreling that one away for his fact-finding commission. He did talk about dismantling the Old Boy Network in Washington, and that could actually work. Especially when you consider the Senator’s current standing as Ranking Old Boy.

Will Durst is a nationally syndicated columnist.