I’ll be honest, I’m relishing the fact that Sarah Palin is leaving Fox News. It’s not that I ever watch the [un]Fair and [un]Balanced program. I’m just glad that she has verbally roved into such irrelevance that even Fox doesn’t want her anymore.

You see, I can’t stand Sarah Palin. I have read that she is one of those people who elicits one of two very strong emotions:  love or hate. I  certainly do not love her, but neither do I hate her. Hate is a harsh word that describes a depth of feeling that I am just not willing to waste on this quack. So I think that the idiom “can’t stand” which means “unable to tolerate someone or something; disliking someone or something extremely,” fits my feelings quite well.

The reasons for my antipathy are numerous, but they have changed throughout the years. The very first time I felt an intense dislike for her was, of course, at the 2008 Republican National Convention. She was the first Republican woman to be nominated for the vice-presidency. But instead of honoring this historic moment with intelligence and grace, she chose to appeal to the lowest common denominator and disparage Barack Obama’s public service as a community organizer.

I also did not like (although I realize this was probably not her doing) how the Republicans made  pregnant Bristol Palin and boyfriend Levi Johnston the convention darlings. Those convention cameras just couldn’t get enough of them. Suddenly, to abstinence-thumping Republicans, out-of-wedlock sex resulting in teen pregnancy was not only acceptable but oh, so very cute! I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy.

After that came the TV interviews and confirmation that she was not only woefully ignorant but also utterly incapable of rising up to the task of becoming fit to serve as our nation’s Vice-President (and perhaps even President should the need arise). I think that during this period my dislike for her was at a peak.  I have a low tolerance for stupidity, but I have an even lower tolerance for people who do not know or refuse to see their limitations. Sarah Palin should have never accepted the nomination for Vice-President. But her ambition was infinitely much bigger than her intellect which brings me to the next reason for my intense dislike.

The “real American” whose patriotism knew no bounds and who showed it by wearing a flag pin “the size of a child’s fist” decided to really go rogue and resign as Governor of Alaska, before her term was finished, for no other reason than to cash in on her notoriety.

Then, of course, there’s her propensity for nonsensical verbal diarrhea often sprinkled with incendiary phrases like “death panels,”  “blood libel,” and “shuck and jive,” to name a few.

I can’t stand Sarah Palin because ever since she was nominated, by a man who claimed to put his Country First but who showed us that the only thing that he was putting first was himself, she has come up short. Sarah Palin has consistently and thoroughly paled in comparison with all those with whom she has positioned herself as an equal.  She was an incapable vice-presidential candidate, an irresponsible Governor, an ineffectual political commentator, and a phony patriot.

She is possibly the first to transform such high levels of ignorance, incompetence and failure into one of the most successful political marketing packages of all time. That is since, today, success is measured by the amount of money that is made regardless of the costs to our political discourse, to reason and, eventually, to our country. Perhaps the real reason I can’t stand Sarah Palin is that she’s one of the starkest reminders that our society is seriously paling in comparison with what it should actually be like.