Ben Macintyre introduces us to the term ‘post-turtle’:

A 75-year-old Texas rancher recently explained this term to a country doctor. The conversation turned to the US election, and Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential candidacy, and the old rancher observed: “Well, ya know, Palin is a post-turtle.” The bemused doctor asked what a post-turtle was, and the old man replied: “When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post-turtle.” The rancher continued: “You know she didn’t get up there by herself, she doesn’t belong up there, she doesn’t know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.”

I love the term, and I really shouldn’t quibble, but it falls short in one sense—this turtle wanted to be on that fence post. Indeed, when it was asked to get up there, it did not blink—and now it wants to live up on the tallest fence post of all, in case Putin rears his head and all. No real turtle would have such self-delusion.

And really, turtles are sweet little things, and protecting them from such cruel analogies is yet another good reason to not vote for Sarah Palin.

(Link via email from Vikram Chandrashekar. More Palin: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.)

Update (October 11): Sanjeev emails to say that the analogy has been used earlier while talking about Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton.

Maybe it applies to all politicians. After all, as Don Boudreaux once asked, who’s qualified to run a country?