Pundits have been saying for a while that the GOP needed to reinvent itself and yesterday Governor Palin put herself in the vanguard of the cause with a bold and surrealistic speech that owed more to the Situationists than the RNC. Sure, you can argue that Mark Sanford got their first with his rambling guess-what-I’m-talking-about confessional, but yesterday Palin set the bar.

Or, as she might put it, she knew when to pass the bar to victory. 

Now this kind of radical career rehab is not for the faint of heart; Britney Spears had to shave her head in public and go through a kind of painful chrysalis that few other conservatives could endure. (You may recall her big plug for Bush and the Iraq war, captured for all time in Michael Moore’s Farenheit 911.) Dangerous, yes, but now she is back on top of the charts and every bit the model mom she was before her Dada period. 

Truth to tell, Palin owes a nod to William Burroughs and Brion Gysin too. What other than their celebrated cut-up technique can explain quotes like this: “A good point guard, here’s what she does: She drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her head up, because she needs to keep her eye on the basket. And… she knows exactly when to pass the ball, so that the team can win. And that is what I’m doing. Keeping our eye on the ball. That represents sound priorities, remember, they include energy independence, and smaller government, and national security and freedom… and I know when it’s time to pass the ball for victory.”

Wow. If you fall into the trap of logic — wondering, for instance, who the guard is, let alone what constitutes victory in this particular game, and how the hell energy independence and freedom got on the court — well, you’re just asking the wrong questions. 

An act of insanity? You wish. We are the ball here and it is us getting played. Her career as a politician may be in jeopardy, though it is hard to tell these days just what you have to do to get permanently bounced from public office (retiring in disgrace is so 20th century!). But her career as a performance artist and world-class surrealist is assured. 

For Alaskans. And for Americans.