CLUELESSNESS IS NEVER A VIRTUE.

"Is enough of my neck stretched out for your hachet, Katie?"

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me THREE times...I must be a fool.

I really, really liked Sarah Palin. She has a lot of great qualities, no need to list them. She has a few well-discussed shortcomings, but puny compared to any other politicians. Until now.

She just resigned...surely no human knows if this decision is a blunder or a master-stroke. But there are other less ambiguous indicators that she is simply incapable of effectively thwarting her--and our--enemies on a national scale. Consider:

Q: When did Sarah Palin's star begin to fade during the presidential camapign?
A: After her interview with ABC'S Charlie Gibson.

Q: When did her public approval begin to crater?
A: After her interview with CBS's Katie Couric.

Q: To whom did Sarah Palin give her first "in-depth interview" following her resignation?
A: To NBC's Andrea Mitchell.

NBC's. Andrea Mitchell.

Now, we don't know yet how bad Andrea Mitchell and NBC will treat Gov. Palin, but that is beside the point. The point is, she AGAIN made a stupendously reckless and inexplicable decision to validate/legitimize/feed/support the self-same rabid leftist media that all real Americans despise and loathe.

Let's see, the lamestream media relentlessly works around the clock for 11 months now, to destroy Sarah Palin, her family, and everything they stand for. And now, in the wake of her huge decision, she gladly invites to bring her words and images to the world...Andrea Mitchell, of NBC.

We "conservatives" (I prefer "normal Americans") need to take ourselves seriously. Do we really believe the lamestream media and its ideology is a baleful problem for our great nation, or not? Yes, President Barrack Hussein is a hair away from being the Anti-Christ, but I have to give him credit for being logical. His neo-Bolshevik ideology sees FoxNews as an implacably hostile, threatening force, doing the bidding of a bloodthirsty mega-capitalist...So Obama BOYCOTTED FOX for the entire campaign, until his election was assured.

Obama took his principle seriously, so he boycotted Fox. He was elected President. Sarah Palin sat down with Charlie and Katie...she L-O-S-T. She clearly does NOT take seriously the "myth of the liberal media," else she'd have recognized her resignation announcement as a golden opportunity to advance her agenda in a creative way. And if Palin doesn't take this major "conservative" principle seriously...then why should anyone else?

So what should Palin have done? Well, why not give her exclusive first interview to Fox's Brit Hume, a real tough-but-fair journalist in the old-school model? Or to Fox's Megyn Kelly, who utterly eviscerated the Us magazine editor who slimed Palin's family during the campaign? Why not give it to Glenn Beck, whose radio and tv ratings and web presence would provide a huge amplifier effect to the interview? Why not then go down the all-American list of talk-radio warriors, and even the blogosphere--from Rush Limbaugh to Laura Ingraham to Hugh Hewitt to AtlasShrugs? Why not finish up with a couple of old-fashioned sit-down interviews with print reporters like Cal Thomas and Mark Steyn, and maybe a guest column in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal? Or maybe the American Spectator, or the American Thinker?

No, better to let Andrea Mitchell choose which questions to ask, her cameramen choose which images to publish, and to let her NBC editors choose how to cut and paste Palin's answers. Good grief.

Reward your friends, and punish your enemies--this is Politics 101. Sarah Palin flunked it. And this 3d time, she can't blame it on passive-aggressive McCain staffers--this decision she made all by herself.

The lamestream media is dying. Why feed them? The alternative media is growing. Why not strengthen the right side of it? The very act of such a choice would generate its own legitimacy and wisdom.

It is to Gov. Palin's credit that she has earned such broad and enthusiastic support that she is a national political celebrity. Her resignation decision HAD to be a huge news story. The only question was who she would choose to reward from it. She chose NBC, and Andrea Mitchell.

21 years ago, the GOP nominated as President a man who had worked alongside Ronald Reagan for 8 years. He ran a disciplined campaign in which he effectively educated Americans about the shortcomings of his short opponent, and founded on one single promise. George Bush was easily elected, and then proceeded to spend the next 4 years breaking his promise, poking his supporters in the eye and pretending his enemies were his friends. For this he was dubbed "President Clueless," and with a cosmic justice was promptly drubbed and humiliated by a draft-dodging womanizing pathological liar. We must never again support any candidate who cannot competently discern her friends from her enemies, and accordingly reward the one and punish the other.