Sarah Palin’s bravura performance on Glenn Beck’s show is rightly drawing a lot of ridicule.  As Steve Benen observes, Palin’s fumbling inability to answer the simple question "who’s your favorite founder" calls to mind Bart Simpson’s BS’ing when he was unprepared to make a presentation in class.   Like Bart, Palin was pathetically unprepared.  You can tell she’s racking her brain for something, anything to say in response to Beck’s softball question.  If you watch the clip, you can almost literally see the thought process play out–she’s working really hard and trying to get something out.   After initially failing to answer the question, you can see Palin’s relief when she suddenly realizes that saying "George Washington" might be a way to answer the question.

Of course, unlike Bart Simpson, Sarah Palin is considered a person of substance.  Serious people discuss the possibility that she could be President of the United States.  I realize her supporters see every display of ignorance as  a badge of honor, but, at some point, doesn’t someone have to step in and send her back for yet another remedial civics class, as the McCain campaign did?

Actually, although watching Palin struggle to come up with the name of a specific founder of the nation she clearly wants to one day lead is both entertaining and revealing, I though the most significant thing about Palin’s erudite discourse with Glenn Beck was her false modesty.

She told Beck that she doesn’t really want to be the "top dog", but she’s willing to "sacrifice" since she has so  much to offer the country.  In fact, she’d be perfectly happy to just go home to Wasilla and spend time with her family, but if she can help the country in some unspecified capacity, she is willing to sacrifice and change some things with her "lifestyle"  "in order to serve".  In other words, no, no I don’t really want to be president, but I guess I’ll make the sacrifice since I have so much to give.

Ok, same old garbage.  We’ve heard this before (kind of reminded me of the similarly modest Dick Cheney, who was supposed to be vetting a running mate for George W. Bush before he "reluctantly" concluded that he was in fact "the least worst option".)   What struck me, though, was the way Palin used false modesty as a thin veil for her outrageous ego.  She ended up comparing herself to George Washington: just as Washington returned home to Mount Vernon after he served the nation, so too would she prefer to return to Wasilla–"He [Washington] was almost reluctant to serve as president, too"–just like Palin herself.

Palin’s act is so transparent that, as Steve Benen says, even a child could see through it.   She explains that she is, herself, a reluctant servant who would prefer to be in Wasilla with her family but would be willing to sacrifice if called on.  She then tells us that, Washington himself was similarly reluctant to serve.  She concludes  "That is who you need to find to serve in government…Those who you know will serve for the right reasons because they’re reluctant to get out there and seek a limelight and seek the power.  They’re doing it for people.  That was George Washington."  And, she made clear, that’s Sarah Palin.

It takes a certain kind of chutzpah to aggressively promote yourself for higher office by arguing that you don’t really want it.  But that’s Sarah Palin.  Nothing is as she claims.  The idea that she shuns the limelight is laughable, as the McCain campaign people could tell you.  I guess it’s also her desire for privacy that led her to accept a lucrative contract to appear on cable TV. But what’s most laughable about her discussion with Beck is the idea that she and George Washington share something in common as reluctant national leaders.  I think her brazen comparison tells us all we need to know about her outsized ego and false modesty