"We need help."

With those words, Washington Post OpEd Writer Dana Millbank, admits that the Sarah Palin thing has gotten out of control.  He wrings a whole column out of it, here.

He admits to mentioning her 42 times since Senator McCain picked her to be his running mate.♠

So, he is declaring February a "Palin Free" month.

Let's take it one step further. I call on Douthat (who has mentioned Palin in 21 of his Times columns since 2008, according to a Lexis-Nexis search, and in scores of blog posts) to join my moratorium - thereby forming a bipartisan coalition of The Post and the Times. I challenge columnists Eugene Robinson (33 Palin mentions), Paul Krugman (14), Kathleen Parker (30) and Maureen Dowd (45) to do the same.

I also call on Keith Olbermann (345 shows mentioning Palin) and Rachel Maddow (183 shows) of MSNBC, as well as Sean Hannity (411 Palin segments) and Bill O'Reilly (664 segments) of Fox News, to take the pledge. Will Politico - with 96 Palin items in the past month alone - join this cause? Will the Huffington Post, which had 19 Palin mentions on a single day last week - stand with me?

I have my doubts about this project.  My post, "Please Stop Fixating", elicited this comment from Jack Mitchell:

I don't see Democratic operatives and the media letting Palin go.

For Dems, Palin makes the perfect arguement to left leaning Independents. Palin brackets pretty much all that is wrong with GOP politics.

The media sells whatever is selling. Palin, and the political spin around her, sells. She is the queen of pop politics.

Palin, of course, happily plays along. And she smirks her sassy self, all the way to the bank.

And there you have it.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Of course you wonder if he had had the insight to mention her before the GOP Convention in 2008.