McCain's VP

Sarah Palin? Totally bizarro selection. Quickie analysis:

- If he wanted to pick a woman to peel off Hillary voters, he could have gone with Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina - but maybe they are both pro-choice. Or he could have gone with Olympia Snowe or Kay Bailey Hutchison (though I read somewhere that Hutchison and McCain don't get along). But a 2-year, radically pro-life governor with a 5-month-old infant? I don't see HRC voters moving dramatically in that direction, unless they were already planning to vote for McCain.

- Even stranger, the people who seem most thrilled about the choice of Palin are those right-wing and anti-tax GOP men who, in the past, have tried hardest to destroy McCain: People like Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, and Christian conservatives like Richard Land and James Dobson, whom McCain once called "agents of intolerance." I think it says something about McCain's insecurity that, even now, when he's the nominee of the party, he has to suck up to people he clearly detests by choosing someone (alas, a woman) who is so clearly not ready for the job.

- All criticism aside, the selection of Palin does bring one huge benefit to the race: some fresh novelties and absurdies. Who knows when the wheels might come off?

Of course, I could be really, seriously wrong about all this, as I've been before.