Caribou Barbie comes complete with matching white sheet and hood.

Worse, Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric‘s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

This is really becoming unhinged. My bet that someone is going to drop the n-word on Fox News looks better every day.

And I thought I found the Palin candidacy insulting. Matt Tabibi at Rolling Stone unloads with both barrels on what her selection as McCain’s choice means about the rest of us:

Here’s the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she’s a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin’ Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else’s, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she’s a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she’s the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way.

The cheering? You can find plenty of examples here.

This crop circle certainly seems to be evidence pointing in that direction.

Photo via AP

(I promise, I will get over my Sarah Palin obsession soon. It’s just the woman is comedy gold, I tell ya.)

(And of course, this thing was carved by someone from Idaho.)

Now that I’ve had a chance to hear more of Sarah Palin — a lot more, way too much, actually — I wonder why she sounds like Frances McDormand in Fargo. She was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, and I can tell you we don’t taak like dat back dere in Eye-De-Ho.

It’s possible, like her foreign policy experience, she picked up the accent by proximity to another country — in this case, Canada. But my current theory is that it’s a speech impediment. Sort of like Tourette’s. Which would also explain the lying.

The constant, repetitive, lying.

Kyle Smith has a lacerating, funny piece on last week’s GOP convention in the Post.

Here’s a sample:

The Rethuglicans tonight squander prime time on the Crusty Ol’ White Guy vote. They indulge in a double dip of the Depends demo: First spake Fred Thompson (R-Cape Fear) and then Joe Lieberman (D/R/I-Apostasy), who together have amassed 132 years on earth, although you could be forgiven for thinking that each reached that mark separately. They deliver hectoring respect-your-elders denture-flappage based in the firm belief that this election comes down to the kind of people you find in a VFW hall in Dallas.

Obviously, I don’t share his warm feelings for Sarah Palin — secession, anyone? — but reading the comments, he seems to be pissing off die-hards on both sides of the aisle.

Which is, of course, a pretty good thing.