How strange and troubling it was to see the guy with the shaved head who introduced Sarah Palin at her rally in Florida yesterday. His name is Mike Scott and although he bears some resemblance to the Ayotollah of Rock 'n' Rolla from the movie Road Warrior, he is actually the Sheriff of Lee County, Florida. The problem? He was wearing his uniform at the time. Not that he should have been up there at all. But a guy in police blues and carrying a sidearm stirring up the crowd...did this bother anyone else?
In America -- and I think we're still in America -- isn't the law -- as represented by, oh, I don't know...cops? -- supposed to remain publicly neutral? So we citizens don't get the idea the cops might, oh, I don't know...favor one group over another? I know that sounds a little naïïve-bordering-on-Kumbaya, but isn't it, oh, I don't know......the law?
Sheriffs are citizens, of course, and they are entitled to vote for whomever they choose. But there is something more than a little unseemly, not to say threatening, about a guy dressed like a gay Strip-o-Gram sneering the name Barack Hussein Obama as he introduces Palin to her salivating mob.
It isn't enough that Palin basically calls Obama a terrorist. It isn't enough that McCain is saying his opponent is a Manchurian candidate. But an armed guy in a sheriff's uniform as your combination political hit man/master of ceremonies? You expect to see someone like that introducing Qaddafi, or Hugo Chavez, or some other thug answerable to no one. But the hockey mom? The winker?
There have been a lot of adjectives thrown around to describe Governor Palin, but here's one that fits: sinister.