Back by popular demand. These bits are actually less a testament to her goofiness than to the ability of Shatner’s sublime hamminess to make anything funny. Set it to bass and bongos and add a few patented melodramatic pauses and even “I … have a dream” would be comedy gold. And yet, light-hearted though they may be, I think these late-night hit-and-runs are more damaging to her than all the dreary hit pieces from left-wing politicos. Bit by bit, they’ve Quaylized her to the point where it’s hard to imagine what she could do to erase the impression that she’s a joke. Conservative pundits keep telling her to bone up on policy and show that she knows her stuff, but that only solves half the problem; to keep the doofus meme at bay, she’d have to be flawless going forward. Any bad answer or “I don’t know” or awkward phrasing along the way would be an occasion to resuscitate it. It’s basically an impossible task. Just ask The One, who’s hours away from beer diplomacy to undo the damage from his nationally televised, fantastically stupid Gatesgate answer.