You know what would be great? If H.L. Mencken were still alive, I bet he'd be writing columns and articles about Sarah Palin that would give her a verbal flaying like we can't even imagine. I have to go track down some of his essays -- he was ruthless in his treatment of some of the crackpot politicians of his day, such as Warren Harding and William Jennings Bryan. (He also heaped praise on Grover Cleveland, of all people, who he seemed to think was horribly underrated.) But he reserved some of his most brutal vituperation for the anti-intellectual and Calvinist tendencies of the Scots-Irish folk of the midsection of the country. The leaders he singled out for his most stinging attacks lead me to believe he'd have it in for Sarah Palin, with her creationist-populism buffoonery. I'm not saying Mencken was right about everything he wrote, far from it -- just that I'd love to see what he'd have to say today in print.
