It's hard to top Andrew Malcolm when it comes to hilarious Palin poll-spinning, but Townhall's Bruce Bialosky gives Malcolm a run for his money with this attempt to explain away Palin's declining poll numbers:

First, the MSM is comparing her current approval ratings to those of December, 2008, when she was the leading light of the Republican Party. As the losing presidential candidate, Senator McCain had fallen into some disfavor while Ms. Palin, the charismatic, young Vice-Presidential nominee, represented the party's future. Republicans in Congress had not yet started to assert themselves, and 2012 was a distant thought. Her sky-high 70% poll numbers from that time were bound to fall, as almost any politician's would.

Sarah Palin did not have “sky-high 70% poll numbers” in December of 2008. For the three months from November 1 2008 through the end of January, 2009, Palin's favorable rating* was stuck in the high 30s -- with more than half of Americans having an unfavorable impression of her. Bialosky's attempt to claim that Palin's poll numbers simply show natural erosion from an astronomical level is false: She had bad numbers in late 2008, and they've gotten worse.

Even funnier:

Third, Ms. Palin had very little competition for the affections of the populace. That scenario ran for a long time – actually for about a year. Then America met Chris Christie, the new Governor of New Jersey, Bob McDonnell, the new Virginia Governor, and Scott Brown, who captured Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. Each of these men, elected in the first post-Obama ballot, drew attention away from Ms. Palin and changed the overall perspective of the voters.

One little problem with the theory that Palin's popularity has suffered as Bob McDonnell's has soared: Nobody in America knows who the heck Bob McDonnell is. Other than that, though: Genius!

* Though Bialosky refers to Palin's “approval ratings,” I'm going to assume he means “favorable ratings,” as pollsters don't tend to assess job approval ratings for Facebook celebrities. (Pollster.com tracks Palin's favorable ratings but not approval ratings; PollingReport.com also lists favorable ratings for Palin but not approval ratings.) Bialosky didn't refer or link to any specific poll, probably because he made up his claims about Palin's December 2008 approval.