THATCHER MAY BE SAYING TO PALIN, "I WON'T BE YOUR MIRROR"

Sarah Palin would really like to meet Margaret Thatcher -- or at least be seen meeting Margaret Thatcher -- but a Guardian political blog says it's not going to happen:

It appears that the former prime minister has no intention of meeting the darling of the Tea Party movement. Andy McSmith reported in the Independent this morning that Palin is likely to be "thwarted" on the grounds that Thatcher, 86, rarely makes public appearances.

It would appear that the reasons go deeper than Thatcher's frail health. Her allies believe that Palin is a frivolous figure who is unworthy of an audience with the Iron Lady. This is what one ally tells me:

Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.

And perhaps Thatcher's allies have grasped that, for Palin, this meeting would be a colossal act of narcissism. A year ago, when Palin told Politico that she intended to try to meet Thatcher, she described Thatcher in terms that made her sound as much as possible like Palin's image of herself:

In a Facebook post scheduled to go up Monday, Palin writes: "I have received an invitation for a visit to London, and part of that invitation included the offer of arranging a meeting between myself and one of my political heroines, the 'Iron Lady,' Margaret Thatcher."

... "As I wrote last year when I offered her birthday wishes, Baroness Thatcher's life and career serve as a blueprint for overcoming the odds and challenging the 'status quo,'" Palin continues. "She started life as a grocer's daughter from Grantham and rose to become Prime Minister -- all by her own merit and hard work. I cherish her example and will always count her as one of my role models....."

... Palin recently touted Thatcher during a speech at a fundraising breakfast for the Susan B. Anthony List in Washington -- a speech in which Palin highlighted many of the "mama grizzlies" she believes are reshaping the Republican Party.

"Mrs. Thatcher, she never set out to be a woman prime minister, just a prime minister," Palin said. "Mrs. Thatcher used to say about politics 'You want something said, ask a man. You want something done, ask a woman.'"

Modest upbringing? Scourge of the status quo? Mama grizzly? That's Palin talking about Palin, not about Thatcher.

(Oh, and that Facebook post? A word to all those wingers who think Barack Obama uses the word "I" too often -- in the post, Palin uses the word 7 times in 162 words. In his speech about the death of bin Laden, Obama was attacked for saying "I" 10 times in 1,388 words. You do the mathematical comparison.)

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Ah, but there is some love for Palin on the British right. That story in The Independent mentions one fan:

Fervent admirers who can be expected to send their own high tea invitations to the Alaskan include the maverick Conservative MP Nadine Dorries. "Palin is a toughie," she said. "She has passion, charm, drive and ability along with a huge, massive connectivity to the American people. She continues to demonstrate her willingness to tackle tough domestic and international issues, in doing so she presents herself as a serious 2012 contender who is not willing to be defined by the liberal media."

Oh, that's perfect. Dorries has campaigned for restrictions on abortion in he U.K. that mimic those in the reddest U.S. states. She advocates abstinence education for adolescents -- escuse me, for adolescent girls -- in a way that strongly suggests she blames the victims of sexual abuse of minors.

Once when she appeared on a reality TV show that featured politicians trying to live on the money allotted to the unemployed, she cheated by hiding fifty pounds in her bra.

And she appeared to have violated the rules on MPs' expenses by claiming that a home far from both London and her own constituency was her primary residence -- and when challenged on expenses, she compared scrutiny of MPs' expenses to McCarthyism and suggested that such scrutiny might drive some MP to commit suicide. Ultimately she was challenged on reports of her activities as they appeared on her own blog. This was the result:

A Tory backbencher has admitted writing a blog that was "70% fiction" to reassure constituents about how hard she was working.

Nadine Dorries made the startling admission to investigators during a sleaze investigation that cleared her of abusing the Commons expenses system but found she had "misled" voters.

The Mid Bedfordshire MP had been accused of wrongly declaring her constituency property as her second home, even though it was thought she spent most of her time there.

The arrangement meant she was entitled to allowances worth £24,000 a year to fund the property.

However, standards commissioner John Lyon concluded that the MP had not breached the rules – because she was actually spending the majority of her time in the Cotswolds.....

According to documents published by the standards and privileges committee, Dorries responded: "My blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact. It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire.

"I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another."

So it's basically one ideologue/grifter/attention-junkie/double-talker's admiration for another.