A reader writes:

I read your latest post about Palin's authenticity with interest. And that little alarm bell that always goes off in my head.

Andrew, whether the Republican party realizes it or not - she is their test. It is with Palin and her political aspirations that we are going to find out whether the tottering GOP is merely desperate, or depraved.

Palin is who she is. She's a deeply disturbed creature and she's spent her whole life banking on her looks and her chutzpah to see her through. She never bothered to excel because she figured, and was rewarded for, faking it. If she can appear to be something and people buy it (literally and figuratively) then she figures that's sufficient. Even worthy of being handed the controls for the United States of America and, for that matter, the world entire. That's how deranged she is.

But the GOP, while they may be a sordid lot these days, drunk on desperation, are not all stupid. Many of them are very bright, just trapped.