As suspended NBA star Gilbert Arenas could attest, guns and basketball don't mix. But just days after getting roundly criticized for her incendiary language about the need for Republicans to "reload" and target the vulnerable Democrats in her crosshairs, Sarah Palin turned to Facebook to cloak her tough talk in an analogy to March Madness. As usual, in her adolescent rant the half-term Alaska Governor was too cute by half.
Headlining the Tea Party rally Sunday in Harry Reid's hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, Palin rejected the concerns raised by even her own supporters about her casual use of violent rhetoric in messages like "Don't Retreat, Instead -- RELOAD!":

"We're not inciting violence. Don't get sucked into the lame-stream media lies."

But even as she told the crowd, "our vote is our arms," Palin's Facebook page doubled-down on her martial metaphors using the NCAA basketball tournament as cover:

To the teams that desire making it this far next year: Gear up! In the battle, set your sights on next season's targets! From the shot across the bow - the first second's tip-off - your leaders will be in the enemy's crosshairs, so you must execute strong defensive tactics. You won't win only playing defense, so get on offense! The crossfire is intense, so penetrate through enemy territory by bombing through the press, and use your strong weapons - your Big Guns - to drive to the hole. Shoot with accuracy; aim high and remember it takes blood, sweat and tears to win.
Focus on the goal and fight for it. If the gate is closed, go over the fence. If the fence is too high, pole vault in. If that doesn't work, parachute in. If the other side tries to push back, your attitude should be "go for it." Get in their faces and argue with them. (Sound familiar?!) Every possession is a battle; you'll only win the war if you've picked your battles wisely. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD! [Italics in the original.]

If that sounds like a teenager's yearbook message to her teammates, it should. It's not the first time the former basketball player known in high school as "Sarah Barracuda" has turned to hoops analogies to score political points.
Sadly for Palin, her first effort was even more embarrassing.
When then Governor Palin announced her resignation on July 3, 2009, she portrayed her political cowardice as courage. "It may be tempting and more comfortable," she said, "To just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out." But in a feeble effort to counter the obvious conclusion that she was like an angry child who takes her ball and goes home, Sarah Palin turned to basketball to claim the opposite:

"Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you're naive if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I'm doing that - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities - smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it's time to pass the ball - for victory."

So much a quitter never wins and a winner never quits.
And so it goes. This weekend, Sarah Palin took a break from raking in millions as a celebrity partisan flamethrower for her drive-by in Nevada. As for her dangerously juvenile talk about guns, Palin makes it quite clear that she is having a blast.