OR, Y'KNOW, YOU JOURNALISTS COULD TRY JUST IGNORING HER

Over at Salon, Steve Kornacki has a piece titled "How to Make Sarah Palin Disappear" -- but I don't think his plan would necessarily work, and there's an easier alternative.

The safe bet remains that Sarah Palin is simply engaged in a long and tiresome tease. Every few weeks comes some new sign of her supposedly imminent entry into the GOP presidential race, but nothing ever seems to happen....

Which is sort of a shame. Because if you're tired of all of this, and if you're tired of all of the media oxygen that the former half-term Alaska governor still manages to consume, then you really should be hoping that Palin actually does get into the race: It may be the best way of making her disappear for good.

Why? Because a presidential campaign would almost certainly end in defeat for Palin. And not just any kind of defeat -- epic, humiliating defeat, the sort of disaster that might once and for all convince the political and media worlds that the empress has no clothes....

Let me try a simpler approach to convincing the political and media worlds that the empress has no clothes:

HEY, POLITICAL AND MEDIA WORLDS: EVERYONE IN AMERICA KNOWS THE EMPRESS HAS NO CLOTHES, EXCEPT HER RIDICULOUS CULT AND YOU GUYS. IN THE MOST RECENT FOX POLL, 75% OF AMERICANS SAID SHE WOULDN'T MAKE A GOOD PRESIDENT. THAT INCLUDES 64% OF CONSERVATIVES AND 58% OF REPUBLICANS. AND YES, I SAID FOX POLL. SO STOP COVERING HER. JUST STOP. COVER HER IF SHE ACTUALLY JOINS THE RACE, BUT UNTIL THEN, IGNORE HER -- TURN THE CAMERAS AWAY, THE WAY BASEBALL BROADCASTERS DO WHEN SOME IDIOT RUNS ONTO THE FIELD. BECAUSE UNTIL SHE ENTERS THE RACE, SHE'S JUST LIKE ONE OF THOSE IDIOTS.

Yes, lefty bloggers still mock her, but that's because she's pathetic and amusing (and because the press's insistence on continuing to cover her is pathetic and amusing). "Serious" journalists should drop their coverage of her and leave her to the rest of us, as a pure target of snark. She should be treated the way Rick Santorum is treated -- as an also-ran who can't figure out how to stop being snickered at online.

Besides, the scenario in which she permanently humiliates herself by running isn't necessarily valid. If she does decide to run and loses, she'll just say she lost because the "good old boys' network" engaged in a sinister plot to thwart her. Will anyone fall for that? Oh, absolutely -- her cult will. So her status will be exactly what it is now: she'll be worshiped by just as many voters, and mocked by all the others -- but the persistence of the cult (and her inexhaustible lust for attention) will continue to draw the media's attention. In which case, we'll never be rid of her.