Crazy Like a Fox

I've got a new piece up at The Guardian's CifA about Palin's recent resignation and the widespread contention that it's evidence she's crazy:

At some point – if all goes as planned and Palin finds herself a hot commodity on the rightwing small-time talk circuit, but nowhere else – she will discover that [Alaska is not a microcosm of America]. And, at that time, she will once again be faced with a steep learning curve, like and unlike the one she has diligently avoided, the one referenced last week by conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer on Fox News: "She is not a serious candidate for the presidency. She had to go home and study and spend a lot of time on issues in which she was not adept last year, and she hasn't."

Learning how to navigate the politics of the Lower 48, understanding how they are different from the quirky politics of Alaska, is like the take-home test of policy details she has cast aside in its magnitude, but unlike it in its potential appeal to Palin. She's not a wonk, has no interest in being one, and has quite possibly no talent for it – but she loves playing politics. Studying textbooks isn't her gig, but studying a new playbook is right up her alley.

And the shrewdest political players don't need textbooks. Bush was evidently a bumbling, fact-challenged doofus in 2000, and, in a 2004 presidential debate, played off ignorance about his own interest in a timber company with: "I own a timber company? That's news to me. Wanna buy some wood? Heh heh heh." He was also a two-term president.

Read the whole thing here.