Today is bliss.

And I owe it all to five simple words. Say it with me, now:

…energy
…tax
…lift American spirits.

Again,
…energy
…tax
…lift American spirits.

Now close your eyes and say it…
…energy
…tax
…lift American spirits.

Now faster, let the words dissolve into pure sound…
…energy
…tax
…lift American spirits.

Start swaying, stop thinking, BE the words….
…energy
…tax
…lift American spirits.

I began the week a hater, now I’m a lover.

When I first saw Sarah Palin’s crib notes scrawled on her palm, I thought, Ha! Now there can be no doubt that she’s a cretin! This was one opinionated, uninformed soccer mom I thought we could be finished with. Even the Tea Party halfwits she was pandering to couldn’t overlook this embarrassing gaffe. Right? Right!? RIGHT!?!

Then I turned on CNN, and the horror started to seep in.

Embarrassment? No! Not at all! This was no shameful proof of an inadequate mind. No, just the opposite. Good old plain speaking upright folks were interviewed and what did they say? Why, they were delighted, of course! Delighted that Mrs. Palin was “one of us.”

One of us? One of us?! I don’t want my president to be like us. I don’t want her to comfortably relate to how I spend my days (if he or she chooses to watch Celebrity Fit Club between global summits, fine, but I’d prefer they didn’t). I don’t want to feel that I could have a beer with him or her. I want my president to be aloof, smart, wise and preoccupied with really big important shit.

But the Tea Partiers defended Palin’s stupidity like it was a badge of honor. She’s no high falutin’, fancy word droppin’, smarty pants know-it-all. No sirree, like any of us, she has to remind herself that “energy” and “tax” might be important issues. What would she have talked about had she forgotten to jot those notes on her palm? Her love of helicopter hunting? What to get Track and Willow for their birthdays?

Can I just say again: I don’t want my president to be an “average American.” I want them to be a stellar American. I don’t want to feel superior to them. I want them to feel superior to me. If I ever asked them a question, I want them to smile patronizingly at me and explain their answer as if talking to a dim four year old.

I realize anybody who thinks Palin is fit to have her finger on the shiny red button can not be argued with. Like a religious zealot, the more the criticism is heaped upon them, the more righteous they feel. They expect snobby secular loudmouths to yap at them – it just confirms what they already knew – that they are in the blessed chosen minority. The proof isn’t in the pudding, it’s in the persecution.

But then something happened. Something beautiful. Something redemptive, something beyond reason and words and our other bogus intellectual constructs. The anger melted away. I gave in. I started chanting the words. I recited them in the shower, I mumbled them to myself while eating my morning bagel, I blinked in time to them. And it was then, and only then, when my heart was truly open, when I let love in, that they began to reveal their complexity, their beauty. And I discovered they were even a bit naughty! She had written “budget cuts” as well on her palm, yet had cryptically crossed out only the word “budget,” leaving “cuts.” What could this mean? Budget cuts weren’t worth discussing? But cuts were? What kind of cuts? Tax cuts? Cold cuts? Paper cuts? I wanted to know! What mischief was the sage of Wasilla up to? Oh, Sarah, how you toy with me. I was fighting my own happiness! I tittered when I thought of the old me, how he had gotten his bowels all up in a frustrated knot when I saw that her stupidity merely upped her appeal. The new me knows better. The new me wants you to share in this bliss, too.

Friends, let the wave take you:

…energy.
…tax.
…lift American spirits.
…cuts…

Indeed.