Quiz: which of these events presents the most disappointment and dread?

Answer: Mama Grizzlies.

(It was a trick question.)

What, exactly, is with the extremist right wing in this country and all the talk of animals and shootin’ guns and teeth-barin’ metaphors?

Seems to be working, though.

Sarah Palin compares right-wing female politicians to Mama Grizzlies and her political action committee raises nearly $1 million in the second quarter.

Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle suggests armed revolt might be the answer to today’s troubled nation and she wins the GOP nomination.

Some winger fringe preacher says a Yellowstone National Park visitor killed by a bear is God’s revenge for researchers drugging the bear to study it…rather than killing it.

Then, of course, there is the famous admission by abortion extremist Neal Horsley that everyone growing up on a farm has sex with mules.

Oh…wait…that’s a different story.

Palin has long made the best out of animal metaphors, of course. Pit bulls and pigs with lipstick became a national phrases célèbre during the 2008 presidential campaign. So much so that, by golly, she’s stickin’ with it.

“I always think of the mama grizzly bears that rise up on their hind legs when somebody’s coming to attack their cubs, to do something ADVERSE toward their cubs,” Palin recently told an adoring audience, not at a zoo.

“You thought pit bulls were tough, well you don’t mess with the mama grizzlies. Look out, Washington, because there’s a whole stampede of pink elephants crossin’ the line and the ETA — stampeding through — is November 2nd, 2010. Lotta women, comin’ together.”

Palin was, of course, comparing politicians and office-seekers who happen to be women – and right wing – to mama grizzlies. That’s sweet and all – and certainly a different view of women than one might get from, say, the National Organization of Women or Emily’s List.

Maybe just a few too many pink elephants stampeding along. Who knows?

“It seems like it’s kind of a mom awakening in the last year and a half, where women are rising up and saying, ‘No, we’ve had enough already.’ Because moms kinda just know when something’s wrong,” she said.

We all know when something’s wrong. One just can’t put lipstick on a pig and expect anyone to see it as anything but a pig.