Ask Again Later

As pundits Jonah Goldberg, Bill Kristol, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Bennett and Ross Douthat continue to cast Sarah Palin as a conservative Joan of Arc lashed to the stake and torched by a vicious liberal media, some in the blogosphere have begun very early handicapping on GOP nominees for the 2012 presidential election, and to put it mildly, it doesn’t look good.

Despite her bevy of flaws as a national candidate, I will give Sarah Palin full credit for one thing: in a Republican Party bogged down with old white men, she is symbol of freshness for the next generation of conservatism. Too bad for conservatism Palin also treats the English language like a two-dollar whore at a truck stop, and has an—at best--very poor knowledge of the world outside Alaska.

Nevertheless, assuming that Palin’s bid for 2012 is kaput while she hits the money trail, the only viable Republicans I see Obama facing for re-election are Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal and perhaps Mike Huckabee. All other names on the GOP’s docket (e.g. Barbour, Brownback, Paul) are simply not viable.

Of course, anything can happen between today and the Iowa Caucuses, but now that Palin—along with Mark “Romeo” Sanford and John Ensign—are seemingly on the far back-burner of American politics for the foreseeable future, the GOP’s Magic 8-Ball cannot be offering much in the way of sage advice these days with the exception of “Wait Until 2016.”