A few hours into BioWare‘s epic game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, there’s a scene involving a swoop-bike race between two gangs in the slums of a backwater planet. When the race is over, the leader of the losing gang decides that he will not allow the other gang’s racer to claim the prize. This prompts the guy in charge of the race to say something like: “You can’t back out now! It would violate all our most sacred traditions!”

Now, this line has always struck me as rather funny. I mean, it’s a race between two criminal gangs in the slums. Just how “sacred” could such an event be, I’ve always wondered.

I’ve thought of this scene more than once while reading about the pseudo-controversy involving Sarah Palin’s daughter on the program “Dancing With the Stars”. People are quite  indignant over the possibility that fans of all things Palin are compromising the integrity of a TV dancing competition. A damned silly thing to be upset about, if you ask me.

That said, it is irritating to me how the mainstream media insists on calling it a “conspiracy theory”. That makes it sound as if people pointing out that die-hard Palin supporters are voting for her daughter are roughly as credible as people who believe lizardmen are responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

The fact of the matter is that Palin fans freely admit voting “early and often”. Is it cheating? I don’t know; the stakes are so incredibly low that I don’t think it qualifies. (The only way it might matter is if there is major gambling involved, and if there were I would assume that ABC would already have better security for the voting.)

But like I said, how worked up can one get over this? I mean, it is somewhat scandalous that our politics are hopelessly intertwined with silly entertainment programs, but it’s been going this way for awhile, and seemingly with the consent of the population in general.