This has got to be a hoax. I waited a couple of hours just to make sure there wasn’t a late breaking announcement that the the whole thing was a prank cooked up on Twitter. But so far, the news is holding up.

Sarah Palin has been rehired by Fox News.

This is fantastic news. With all of the dark reckonings in recent weeks – the IRS, Syria, tornadoes, etc. – this could not have come at a better time. It has literally brightened my day. And that’s true even though Greta Van Susteren thinks that Palin’s return will drive liberals crazy. Yeah, right. Crazy with joy.

You still have to wonder just how desperate both parties must have been to renew their vows (ironically on the same day that Rupert Murdoch announced that he and his third wife are getting divorced. Coincidence?). Fox had managed to unload some ratty baggage when they ousted Palin. Her star had fallen in every venue. Her books weren’t selling. Her cable reality shows were canceled. Her movie flopped. All she had left was her Facebook postings. That paints a pretty good picture of why Palin would be anxious to grab some attention.

As for Fox, after the 2012 election debacle they hired losers like Allen West, Scott Brown, Erick Erickson, Herman Cain, and Mark Levin. Apparently that star-studded roster was not enough. So they have come a-courting Palin. It’s likely they got her at bargain basement prices. After they split in January, Howard Kurtz reported that Roger Ailes had offered her a low-ball contract at a fraction of her previous salary.

We’ll see if Palin manages to earn her keep this time around. An estimate of her prior stint showed that Fox had paid her $15.85 per word for the three year term of her contract. At the time I speculated that they could get her for $15.85 per hour in six months, which is right about now. I sure hope Fox didn’t overpay.