Houston, we have a problem

I've been experiencing the oddest sense of deja vu for the last couple of days. Every time I've seen some right-wing blowhard trying to explain how prom queen runner-up Sarah Palin was going to be the bestest vice-president evar and was like, totally qualified to be President of the United States, I've been puzzled by the familiarity of it all and wondered where I had seen a similar kind of "make the best of what you have" situation.

It just hit me.



You know the scene in Ron Howard's epic "Apollo XIII" where the NASA engineers are gathered around a big table and one of them walks in with a big box, dumps the contents over the table, and says something to the effect of "we have to figure out how to turn this pile of assorted trash into a working air purifier" as the rest of the group looks at each other with dazed expressions?

Somehow, I think if Sarah Palin was an astronaut, she would already be starting to gasp a little from the lack of oxygen.