Palin's brand of politics

Via Steve Balboni, check out Matt Taibbi's essay on Sarah Palin. It's a great read, but I particularly appreciated his contrast between Palin and Rush Limbaugh:

Rush is no Einstein, but the man does research. It may be fallacious and completely dishonest research, but he does it all the same. His battlefield is world politics and most of the time the relevant action is taking place in Washington. As good as he is at what he does, he still has to travel to the action; he himself isn’t the action.

Sarah Palin’s battlefield, on the other hand, is whatever is happening five feet in front of her face. She is building a political career around the little interpersonal wars in the immediate airspace surrounding her sawdust-filled head. And in the process she connects with pissed-off, frightened, put-upon America on a plane that’s far more elemental than the mega-ditto schtick.

[...]

Sarah Palin is on an endless crusade against assholes. It’s all she thinks about.