There is always a temptation to respond to whatever Sarah Palin says or does with tongue firmly in cheek. It is not only the statements she makes and the issues she raises, but the manner in which she does it. Responses to her latest move – to visit India to give a well-paid keynote address on “My Vision of America” – are not only vulnerable to tongues in cheeks, but chuckles and chokes (sari Sarah, he, he, he). Most pundits and politicos – even some on Rupert Murdoch’s payroll – will have to put plastic bags over their faces or firmly press their windpipes to resist making the obvious, but delicious, puns or paraphrasing her highly cited and invariably mangled quotable quotes. But make no mistake – her speech will make global news. And it will have implications for the way the United States is perceived abroad. The funny Alexandra Petri, in her ComPost column on the Washington Post website, may not be exaggerating when she says that Plain is “like plutonium – not something I want to let out of the country and release near Pakistan.” Palin will be arguably the most prominent and controversial private American citizen to visit the country since out-of-work Richard Nixon sauntered around India in 1964 (sorry, Al Gore, who gave a speech at the same conclave last year, doesn’t make the cut even if Earth freezes over). Meanwhile, I, for one, will wait for Tina Fey, draped in a sari, pre-empt Palin’s speech on "Saturday Night Live."