Why I Qualify To Be Secretary of State
Pierre Tristam / Candide's Notebooks, Sept. 3, 2008
WASILLA, Alaska - Dianne Keller, who succeeded Sarah Palin as mayor of this small city, proclaimed Tuesday afternoon that "the process for running the city of Wasilla is probably much like the process for running our country.

I once attended a School Improvement Council meeting where we decided how to distribute a few thousand dollars in bonus money for teachers at my daughter’s elementary school. The experience was revealing, so, thinking “Country First,” I immediately phoned Colin Powell, secretary of state at the time, to let him know that I could be lead mediator in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Powell told me that Bush’s “road map” for peace in the Middle East had taken a turn for cryogenation somewhere in a Fairbanks suburb, where it’s been stuck for the last six years. Wasilla thaws and all, I’m hoping I can put my experience to use in the next administration now that Sarah Palin, boning up on stuff with Dick Cheney in their undisclosed location, has just learned that the West Bank is not, in fact, a financial institution that mortgages subdivisions (or is that settlements?) all over the West Coast.

(And please, Notebookers, like Ohdave, share your reasons why you qualify to be president, vice-president or chief justice of the United States in the era of McPalin.)