Palin revels in being callous, simplistic, and ignorant, and this is supposed to be the person who is one frail heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world and the greatest role model for our daughters in a generation? If we can’t do better than this, we don’t deserve to survive as a democracy or as a civilization.

Bullies have always been unable to understand the difference between cruelty and strength, unable to grasp the ideas of humility and teachability, unable to tolerate anything that reminds them of the fear inside them that they can never drown out with bragging or blustering. It is a fearful little personality that shows itself on the outside as a Bush, a Palin… or in a society where they can get away with it, a Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.

And yes, they are morally and psychologically equivalent. All are/were messianic ideologues with strong sadistic streaks, combining cynical and Machiavellian deceit in the pursuit of power with paranoia and intolerance for dissent or the Other.

We can’t afford to have a vicious anti-rational, anti-environment, anti-minority, anti-democracy fundamentalist in our government at any level, let alone the highest.