Editor’s Note: A longtime journalist, Margo Howard went into the family business (her mother was the fabled Ann Landers) in the 1990s as Dear Prudence. Her broad experience and understanding of human nature provide answers for the troubled — and entertainment for everyone else. Click here to read her column on Yahoo!

The never demure and always foul-mouthed Sandra Bernhard is back with her desperate-to-shock apercus.  This go-round was aimed at Sarah Palin – and wound up on You Tube, no less.  One of her shout-outs to Ms. Palin (that I am willing to commit to print) was: "You whore in cheap glasses." Nice, huh? She could not have given a better gift to Republicans and Palin supporters than this vulgar, ridiculous, attention-grabbing pronouncement.  (And I don’t know if Bernhard has her own oil well, but those glasses cost $400.)

I believe the lady with the literally and figuratively big mouth to be for Obama, so how, I am wondering, does she think a rant like hers helps him?  The other side is properly outraged; just look at the comment boards. (And if one were to seriously follow the whore metaphor in this political circumstance, it would be McCain, not Palin, who is the whore.) Meant to shock, crude insults about almost anything or anyone may be fine for nightclubs, but they are landmines in campaigns. Mort Sahl she isn’t.

I do not think Sarah Palin can be faulted for accepting what was offered. The real problem is what she offers, which ain’t much.  Perhaps more disturbing than her near-amateur status is the excitement with which the Republican faithful, not to mention the whack-job churchies, greeted her. When and how did Know-Nothingism make such a comeback? It is unsettling that great numbers of people have become used to so little, and hard to believe that what was a great line on Saturday Night Live (“I can see Russia from my house!”) was Sarah Palin’s actual response when the subject of Russia came up.

McCain’s No. 2 (even though she’s been slipping and calling the ticket "Palin-McCain") strongly suggests that quite a chunk of the country has undergone an intellectual cleansing. That is a bigger problem than Ms. Palin … that and the fact that the lady should have blinked.