Good morning, Sarah Palin. Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Dear Ms. Palin,

Good morning! It was quite an eventful weekend, wasn't it? I know your staff has certainly been busy, between the touching call for prayer that the person who writes your Facebook page posted to the abrupt removal of your "Take Back The 20" Website. I've been thinking about what your aide said, about how those crosshairs on the map really weren't gun sights at all but more like the innocent symbols you'd find on a surveyor's map. After much thought, I now agree with her, because you, Ms. Palin, are a surveyor yourself.

During the 2008 elections, you were a surveyor of the American landscape. You saw what the rest of us saw...a country bruised and battered by eight years of bad policy, by a president who lied to bring us onto war for the purpose of, among other things, seeking revenge upon the man who tried to "hurt his daddy," by a vice president who reaped enormous financial reward through the spilled blood of countless American military personnel while sounding the clarion call for more war, more killing, more aggression...a man with five successful attempts at avoiding military service when it was his turn to do his duty.

You're a woman, and you could have been a remarkable role model for millions of little girls, teenagers and adults across the country and the world. You could have positioned yourself as an agent of change, as someone who would restore the honor and dignity to the working men and women of this country who suffered as our former president rewarded his "base" at their expense.

Instead, you did something none of us expected. You approached the glowing, orange embers that lay smoldering at the rubble heap that once was a proud and prosperous America and you slowly fanned the flames. The anger, the uncertainty, the shattered lives...with the precision of a laser surgeon, you focused on that anger and encouraged people to become more angy, to become "Tea Party Patriots," to "reload, not retreat," to take up arms in revolt of an unseen enemy that they didn't understand, and neither did you.

As "Pogo" creator Walt Kelly once famously wrote, in the events of this past weekend, we have once again been given the opportunity to meet the enemy.

And he still is us.

It's not you. You're an adult, you can make adult decisions regarding your own life. You can abandon your position as an elected official to do commentary on Fox News, hire people to write books for you, go on lucrative public speaking tours, partner with Fox News personalities to stage rallies that further fan the aforementioned flames.

But you're still not the enemy.

We are, for giving you a platform. We are, for...just like a single cancer cell can multiply and spread its way through healthy tissue and destroy a life, you've spread your negative influence throughout a country in pain...you've weakened the body, you've crushed its vitality and warmth and loving spirit.

It's not your fault for doing it.

It's America's fault for willingly and consistently giving you a platform, for encouraging you, for enabling you.

Like the scorpion said to the frog, "I'm a scorpion. I sting things."

But enough on that subject. I have someone I'd like you to meet. Her name is Christina-Taylor Green.



She was nine years old. She went to Safeway this past weekend to meet Gabrielle Giffords and learn about politics.

She learned.

She was a nine year old girl, and unlike many of her peers, she'd already looked ahead to a point in her life where she would build a career upon helping others.

Not helping them by appearing on news entertainment shows. Not helping them by having her name appear on books written by others. Not helping them by making herself the star of a weekly TV reality show. Not helping them by seeking elected office and abandoning her commitment in mid-stream to satisfy her ego and seek financial gain. Not helping them by manipulating their weakness, by turning them into a host body for her rapidly multiplying brood.

She wanted to help people.

Can you see the difference?

Ms. Plain, this is a new morning. Christina no longer has the freedom to make choices in her life.

You do. Starting right now.

You can stop all of the nonsense right now. You can stop yelling into microphones and asking people if they love their freedom. You can drop the word salads and catch phrases about lame stream media. You can stop the violent rhetoric and military jargon and be exactly what this beautiful little child wanted to be.

You can be a force for good in this world.

You can be a force for positive change.

Or you can do nothing. You can blame everyone but yourself for the fact that fingers are now pointed in your direction in the wake of this tragedy.

And make no mistake, Ms. Palin, you are responsible for fanning those flames. You, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck. You all played a part in bringing our country to the point where anger equals profit, and the more anger, the more profit, so we are angry all the time.

Good morning, Sarah Palin. Welcome to the first day of the rest of your political life, as well as your life outside of politics.

How do you plan to spend it?

Mike

A.K.A. "Amerigo Vespucci"