I’ve been in the hospital all weekend with my daughter who is very sick with pneumonia. There’s not much to do here. We got hit with a snowstorm on Friday, and today is Super Bowl Sunday. Most of my friends and family are either hunkering down trying to stay warm or prepping for Colts’ parties. So in between my daughter’s breathing treatments and meals, I’ve been reading and surfing the net.

This morning I noticed that the Yahoo! News page had three Associated Press stories in a row on Sarah Palin: “Palin assails Obama at ‘tea party’ gathering,” “Palin says ‘absurd’ not to ponder presidential bid,” and “Palin: Obama could win votes by playing ‘war card’.” I read all three, but it was the last one that just blew my mind.

The article is only four sentences. The first: “Sarah Palin says that if President Barack Obama ‘played the war card,’ he could improve his chances of being re-elected.” So sending troops to risk their lives is akin to a card game? Or even worse, the president should use troops to improve his political chances of re-election? I know many soldiers in our armed forces who have already served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. I know they were proud to serve their nation and felt they were doing good things for the people in those countries, but I also know they would not appreciate being “played” as pawns in some political game. Such an assertion is disgusting.

The second sentence: “Palin says that declaring war on Iran or showing stronger support for Israel might convince voters that Obama is tougher than they think on national security and doing all he can to protect the U.S..” Obviously, Mrs. Palin subscribes to the George Bush school of foreign policy: do whatever you have to do to other countries, regardless of the impact on their citizens, as long as it gets you votes back home. Again, a disgusting notion. Mrs. Palin claims to be a Christian, but evidently she has forgotten the Golden Rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Should Vladimir Putin invade the U.S. or show more support for China to improve his chances of re-election? Somehow, I don’t think I or my fellow Americans would appreciate that much.

The third sentence: “Otherwise, according to Palin, Obama won’t be re-elected if he continues on his current path.” Palin seems to have forgotten that one of the main reasons Obama was elected was because Americans were worn out with the Iraq War. Not only that, but she assumes that all voters are hawks who would welcome another politically motivated conflict. I thought voters made it pretty clear to the G.O.P. in ’08 that we did not think much of that behavior. Maybe Palin believes in SSDEC – Same S#!^ Different Election Cycle.

The final sentence of the article: “Palin was interviewed on ‘Fox News Sunday’ — the network where the former GOP vice presidential nominee is a paid commentator.” This final line was really the icing on the cake. So let me get this straight. Palin is a Republican poster girl; she is being interviewed on Fox News, which, despite their protestations, is just a mouthpiece of the Republican party. She is also now employed by this “news” outlet which “interviewed” her about her speech at the tea party convention. Does anyone else see the irony, not to mention the conflict of interest, in this?

It just so happens that this article was the last one of the three listed and the last one I read. But I couldn’t help synthesizing the points Palin made in this article with a line in the “Palin assails Obama at ‘tea party’ gathering” article: “Aside from broad conservative principles like lower taxes and a strong national defense, the speech was short on Palin’s own policy ideas that typically indicate someone is seriously laying the groundwork to run for the White House.” Evidently, she did her usual sweeping-generalization-folksy-jokesy-talking-point speech style during her tea party speech. (That would play well with that audience, which she ironically described as “fresh” and “young” although the average age of the attendees was about 95.) Her “interview” on Fox News Sunday filled in some of the blanks in her policy ideas, though: use the troops for your own political gain, invade whenever it will promote your career, assume that all Americans love war, and use any outlet necessary to forward your ideas, even when it’s unethical. So those are some of the things we can expect from Candidate Palin in a couple years?

Sarah Palin ’12? Excellent.