Is it wrong to hope Sarah "hockey mom" Palin will remain on the world stage simply for our own entertainment? And does that make us as bad as the folks who convinced her she has a shot at choosing the drapes for the Oval Office?

Sarah Palin truly is the gift that keeps on giving, and while many would really like to put that gift on Trade Me or E-Bay, I deeply suspect most want to keep her right in the spotlight…and watch…like a car crash, or as some wit described, a moose on roller skates—not at all graceful, but highly entertaining.

Palin appeals to the most base of political instincts—one akin to pulling the wings off flies. Her complete and utter incompetence is at once both breathtaking and ridiculous. It is fair to ask how on earth she ever became a State Governor—albeit of Alaska , and it is also fair to wonder how she ever came to believe she could fool all of the people all of the time.

What is glaringly apparent is we are witnessing a sort of reverse Susan Boyle syndrome. Deeply shallow as this may at first appear and with apologies to Boyle, if Sarah Palin looked like Susan Boyle she would never have been heard of outside her own little scandals in Alaska . Heck she probably wouldn’t have even been the Governor of Alaska.

She would never have been chosen by an old desperate white guy to get on board as his running mate in the 2008 election. She would never have done whatever it is she manages to do to other sad old white guys like motor-mouth de facto Republican Leader Rush Limbaugh. No, you can safely say that with Susan Boyle’s looks and Sarah Palin’s brain, there would never have been so much of a mention of the soon-to-be-former Alaskan Governor.

Don’t get me wrong, Sarah Palin is a very good looking woman, and all power to her if she can make her looks work to her advantage. It’s just that without being a girly-swot about this, surely high office in any democracy requires more than aesthetics. Studies have shown good-looking people tend to be disproportionately successful, but office as high as being the self-proclaimed leader of the free world should require fully functioning grey matter, oodles of intellectual curiosity and a capacity to form a coherent sentence. Perhaps herein lies the problem. ‘W’ did so much to lower the intellectual curiosity bar that Palin has convinced herself if ‘W’ can be President, well then hold the phone, so can she.

So to prove she is not a ‘quitter’ she has quit her job. The ‘reasoning’ proffered goes a little like this: she doesn’t want to be a lame-duck Governor after she made herself a lame-duck by announcing she wouldn’t run for Governor next time, but she’s a fisher and knows that only dead fish go with the flow and she’s no dead fish, and while surrounded by pesky ethics complaints she’s had to spend money on defending herself as lame-duck live fish apparently need to do, so slipping like that moose on roller-skates into a little basketball vernacular the no lame-duck live fish ex-governor knows how to pass the ball, which when you think about it, no dead fish could do, so there. Oh, and she’s sick of apathy, because as an anti-choice gal, she wants people to have choice. Hmmm, more Palin and simple than plain and simple methinks.

Imagine for just a minute if she ever did make it to be President. Bags not be reincarnated as an interpreter for any head of state from a non-English speaking country. Make that bags not be an interpreter for even an English speaking nation.

With apologies, this time to Mike Moore, there was a time during his run for re-election in 1990 where making a coherent news clip from his enthusiastic Kiwiana was a journalist’s nightmare. His stream of consciousness went along the lines of this: New Zealand , marmite, rugby jerseys on the line, Singapore great little country, size of Lake Taupo , tapioca, think about it. And think we did but because Moore had a brain capacity most would envy, it was pretty obvious what he was on about.

Palin, bless her, has not yet shown any evidence of being so cranially endowed. So quitting to prove you are no quitter so as to prove you are no dead fish playing basketball may be valuable material for Dr Seuss, but hardly the stuff of Presidential office no matter who has convinced her that is a possibility. Should not the ‘convincers’ stand and be identified?

This Wasilla self-described hockey mom should just come clean and announce that she’s out of the Governor’s residence so she can cash in on a very lucrative book deal, the pay cheque for which she couldn’t accept while Governor. That would possibly be the first time her actions would make sense, and, if she can make the dosh, go for it.

But in keeping with a now established modus operandi, Palin and straightforward just don’t go together. After all, it is difficult to imagine a book publisher fronting up with what’s reported to be anything between $7 and $11 million for a tome about Sarah Palin: Political Enigma if she were to slip quietly into that long Alaskan night.

So she’s playing a game, as is her right, because she’s worth millions, while no-one knows quite what she’s up to.

As for the book, it is likely to be a best seller. The motive behind buying it matters not to the publisher. You may read it to pull a few more wings off the fly, or because you wish to actively contribute to a Presidential run, but read it millions will, with Limbaugh and co buying in bulk.

It is safe to say however ‘one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish’ will remain forever more popular than ‘Wasilla fish, dead fish, rich fish, read fish’.

In the meantime Sarah Palin has once again proven herself to be an entertaining distraction, this time from the wall to wall homage being paid to Wacko Jacko, and if the Wasilla Moose manages to stay on those roller skates, she will deliver again…and again.