Sarah, We Hardly Knew Ye

After JFK was killed, two of his aides wrote a sad book, “Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye,” titled from an old Irish ballad. The memory arises with news (Oh, heartbreak!) that Sarah Palin won’t be running for president, after all.

So ends another era in American politics, as brief as Kennedy’s, not with a bang but a whimper as the inspiring figure tells followers, “When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.”

The nation’s loss will be hard to bear, but there is some consolation for the grieving in the words of that song, mourning a wounded patriotic warrior of another century:

“Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo/Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo/Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg/Ye're an armless, boneless, chickenless egg/Ye'll have to be put with a bowl out to beg/Oh Johnny I hardly knew ye.”

In Mrs. Palin’s case, there is the consolation that, if the Lord does not provide, St. Rupert Murdoch will and, though she will be gone, she will not be forgotten.

Update: Palin mourners are being disrespected by other politicians and what she calls the lamestream media, but their reactions only confirm their insensitivity to her unique place in our world—-far above politics as usual, in an alternate universe most of us just don’t understand.