In the six years since 2008, when she lost the election and failed to become vice president of the United States, and the five years since she abruptly quit her job as governor of Alaska midway through her first term, Sarah Palin has devoted her life to nothing other than a relentless pursuit of the spotlight.

Like Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter, to name just two, Palin has become a practitioner of what could be called “pull my finger” politics. The tactic is simple. Palin et al make a carefully crafted outrageous comment, essentially saying to the media, “Pull my finger — no, really, pull my finger.” The media falls for it by reporting the incendiary remark, which, of course, evokes a firestorm of criticism — which is to say, a big stink — that persists through multiple news cycles during which everyone is talking about nothing else but guess who.

A recent example occurred in May when Palin addressed a meeting of gun nuts in Texas. Speaking to a lunchtime crowd, the woman whom Sen. McCain chose to be a septuagenarian’s heartbeat away from the world’s largest nuclear arsenal compared Christian baptism to torture. Complaining that liberals coddle terrorists, she proclaimed that were she the president, “they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

As intended, this nasty bit of right-wing sacrilege evoked outrage, and not just from liberals, like the National Religious Campaign against Torture, but also from troglodytes at the American Conservative, one of whom described her speech as, “just witless, red-meat blathering, delivered in that nasal whine of hers that makes it sound like she’s chewing wads of tinfoil.”

Ouch.

But so what if one of her ideological allies criticized her? Her finger was pulled, and a stink resulted. There really is no such thing as bad publicity. At least they were talking about her. It works every time.

All of us here at Pensito were adolescents once, and unlike our media betters, apparently, we remember all too well what happens when other adolescents’ fingers are pulled. That’s why we have an unwritten rule against giving air to flatulence emitted by the likes of Sarah Palin. Exceptions can be made, however — especially when Palin puts herself at the center of a firestorm of publicity she’s desperate to avoid, which is exactly the predicament she’s in today.

The firestorm started on Saturday night, Sept. 6, when Palin and her family made public spectacles of themselves by behaving like low-class drunken brawlers:

A South Anchorage, Alaska, house party turned into a brawl Saturday night when the snowy state’s former first family, the Palins, made an appearance. According to reports corroborated by some Alaska-based bloggers, the celebration, held for the Iron Dog snowmobile race, was “a nice, mellow party until the [Palins] showed up.”

Sarah Palin’s oldest son, Track, reportedly jumped out of a stretch Hummer after spotting an ex-boyfriend of his sister Willow. Then the rest of the Palin clan barreled out of the limo and apparently proceeded to yell and throw punches. Track’s father, Todd Palin (a four-time Iron Dog snowmobile champion), allegedly “puffed up his chest and made some threatening remarks,” and may have “uttered the “C” word,” according to Wonkette’s Rebecca Schoenkopf. Charles Frayer, who attended the party, told Alaska Dispatch News that the fight was like a dog pile, “just like you see in a football game.”

Amanda Coyne, an Alaska-based political blogger, first reported that the Palin family instigated the fight. In her report, Coyne cites anonymous bystanders who claim that Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol threw a few “strong right hooks,” a shirtless Track Palin was running about “thumping his chest” and Sarah Palin at one point screamed, “Don’t you know who I am?” To which someone reportedly screamed back, “This isn’t some damned hillbilly reality show!”

Anchorage police confirmed there there was a “verbal and physical altercation” involving about 20 people. According to Coyne, “As people were leaving in a cab, Track was seen on the street, shirtless, flipping people off, with Sarah right behind him, and Todd somewhere in the foreground, tending to his bloody nose.”

This incident provides more evidence that Palin and her family never were equipped for the role of national figures thrust upon them by Republican operatives and pols. It also reveals that Palin’s political skills are limited to just two tactics — “pull my finger” and, well, lying. See how her team spun the brawl in a softball report from right-leaning RealClearPolitics.com titled, “The Palin Family’s Side of the Anchorage Brawl Story”:

[According] to the Palin family’s version of events, the instigator was actually the former boyfriend.

The initial tussle occurred, the source said, after the young man in question “tried to get in” to the Hummer limousine after he’d engaged in some unspecified “questionable behavior.”

Track Palin soon found himself struggling to fend off four men who had “piled on him,” according to the source.

Todd Palin then inserted himself into the brawl, which left the former “First Dude” of Alaska bleeding.

Next, it was Sarah Palin’s turn to leave her own mark on the most talked about rumble in Anchorage since the 1964 earthquake.

On the previous night, she had been in Houston to speak at a fundraiser benefiting the Mighty Oaks Warrior Foundation, which helps wounded veterans. That event apparently was fresh on Palin’s mind when she engaged in the tumult on Saturday night.

According to the source, as her husband and son were trading blows with their adversaries, Palin was yelling (in reference to her son), “Don’t you know who he is? He’s a vet!”

This rendition of her words differs slightly but significantly from a previous report, which had Palin shouting, “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Don’t you know who he is? He’s a vet!” Riiight…

Beyond the harsh light this episode casts on Sarah Palin and her brood, it also provides yet more proof of the colossal bad judgment, not only of the men who elevated Palin to the national stage — especially Bill Kristol, the former Newt Gingrich chief of staff who “discovered” her, and Sen. John McCain, who anointed her to be his running mate — but also of the millions of Republicans who voted for her in 2008.

As one close observer of all things Washington put it in a Facebook post, “As bad as it is now, it could be oh so much worse. What if this lot were living at the Naval Observatory?”

If Republicans had had their way in 2008, they would be.

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