Think back to a land faraway and a President who was a nice guy from Texas who said during a convention that he would not raise taxes and went so far as to say READ MY LIPS... NO NEW TAXES. Whatever happened to that guy anyway? He's sitting in Texas with his son right now. George Bush Senior could never live that down after he did raise taxes. It cost him the election and became the tag applied to every bonehead ditty politicians have thrown out there since. Then along comes Mrs .Palin.

 Who can forget the RNC speech where she crowed from the rafters DRILL BABY DRILL. The crowd went wild. They loved it. It was such an FU to the environmental movement and those pansy girl men on the left who cared about the environment and argued offshore drilling would not be in the nations best interest and could lead to an ecological nightmare. Sarah just turned up the heat, hitting her chant like a rockstar, DRILL BABY DRILL. She did look sexy up there taunting all those pale washed out environmentalists, saving us from our dependency on foreign oil.

So we DRILLED BABY DRILLED and even the President started to come around. It seemed the whole country thought maybe the crackpot from Alaska was onto something. Well why not DRILL BABY DRILL and get that crude to the surface. Then...BOOM. The rig  blows up in the Gulf and DRILL BABY DRILL has become GUSH BABY GUSH. And we can't stop it. Millions of gallons of crude just gushing out into the Gulf and headed for Louisiana and Florida. Possibly, the largest Eco disaster we ever faced.

And so now we have Mrs. DRILL BABY DRILL.  You have to admire Sarah Palin, she doesn't back off on her position even when the oil is creeping toward our coast like a black plague. She must know though that she has now become the poster child for everything that is wrong with the whole philosophy of DRILL BABY DRILL. She must know that she has now become the inheritor of READ MY LIPS, NO NEW TAXES. If she still makes a run for the White House I am sure George Senior can give her a few tips on how to overcome sticking both feet in your mouth.

Well, good luck with all that.  

William Hazelgrove is the Hemingway writer in residence for the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. He has written four novels, reviews and features for USA TODAY and been the subject of stories in the NY Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and NPR'S All Things Considered. His forthcoming novel is Rocket Man. More information can be gathered at www.billhazelgrove.com