Perfect phrasing.

McCain choosing Sarah Palin = Bush choosing Harriet Myers.

An unserious selection for a very serious position.

I think this decision is Quayle redux. McCain is attempting to appeal to young women and close the gender gap, much like Bush attempted to appeal to the youth vote by picking Quayle.

The problem is that Palin is a Stepford wife. She is a woman willing to sell out other women over a narrow set of beliefs. She is a Phyllis Schlaffly feminist, an Ann Coulter feminist, and in the coming days will have to defend a set of core values that undermine gender equality.

McCain has picked a trophy VP with minimal reformist credentials in a blatant attempt to pander to women. Much like McCain is anti-soldier, Palin is anti-woman.

This is a flash in the pan. McCain will hog a little spotlight, but it is purely rubbernecking. The choice draws the wrong kind of attention and will bring out media apologists who will commit all sorts of verbal acrobatics trying to justify this decision.

Her opening speech was flat. She clapped into the microphone and spoke from her sinuses like an amateur. The amount of training it is going to take to mold her into a credible national candidate exceeds the benefits of the choice itself.

McCain also made the choice during soap opera time in an attempt to entertaint he housemarm vote. Too bad Oprah has already thrown her weight behind Obama.

I mean, for God's sakes, what does Palin bring to the table that isn't already offered in spades by the Democratic ticket?

McCain/Stepford 08

I am going to take a contrarian view. I think Palin effectively counters, to a degree, one of Sen Biden's strengths: his ability as a debater nonpareil.

I dug around and found this:

http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-beat-joe-biden.html

This may reflect the GOP's thinking. I don't want to underestimate her. Thats the way to get beat.

As far as I can research she is a big oil&gas, fossil fuel industry supporter, but also has a bit of the reformer in her. A very interesting combo.

My question is, what's he draw to independents? Nobody is going to vote for McCain because of Palin who wasn't already predisposed to voting for McCain. She 'does no evil' for the next few weeks ONLY. She's absolutely going to have a potatoe-moment (or five) before November. She's already gone there by not being exactly sure what a VP does!

(9) McCain/Palin = still no experience with the economy.
(10) Palin's beauty contest experience fills the celebrity status most appropriately.

The only way I could reason this was a good pick was that McCain believed the polls that said 30% of Clinton voters would not vote for Obama. If that is the case; and if we get a few PUMA stragglers then it could turn out to be a good choice.

Course it could result in lots of men and women Republicans sitting out the election because they feel they have no choice.

What ever happens, it is going to be interesting.

Pailin' or not, I think this whole "untested" label for Obama was true only before he went through his testing. Remember at the start of the Democratic selection process, how everybody was saying that it was one of the THE MOST substantial field of candidates in memory? Barack Obama and his incredible crew beat them all. He won 34 out of 57 contests. He beat the Clintons!

McCane never went through 57 hard-fought contests. And remember, in contrast to the Democratic field, McCane was facing what everybody was saying was a pretty pathetic bunch of second-stringers on the Republican side.

Barack Obama has demonstrated as thoroughly as any candidate anywhere that he is tested, ready, and fully able.

McCain has picked a trophy VP with minimal reformist credentials in a blatant attempt to pander to women.

Exactly. A Trophy VP. I feel a little sorry for her at this point. If McCain loses the election, pundits will likely blame his failure on Palin's presence, but it was his decision to bring her aboard.

I'll feel more sorry for her if she is cleared of the pending vendetta-firing charges (a scandal brewing in her state of AK), but things don't look good.

She could have had the good sense to say "No." Something like, oh, "I'm honored, but I don't feel I'm quite ready yet." A hard offer to turn down, but people have turned the No. 2 spot down before, for similar reasons.

And McCain's VP maneuver is not just pandering to women...it's pandering to anyone seeking legitimate change in presidential politics.

This isn't change. It's novelty.

Barack Obama has shown us, in countless debates, public appearances, journeys abroad, through his education, and through his legislative experience, that he has the chops for the top job. Sarah Palin has not been similarly tested, and she truly will stand a heartbeat away from McCain's (possible) presidency. He is now 72 years old, battered from war injuries, afflicted with skin cancer, and possibly predispositioned to die in his 70's (his father died at age 70...without suffering years in a prison camp).

A bizarre, nonchalant, patronizing choice.

If I was a woman voter, in this case I would feel like a child trying to get his workaholic or otherwise uninterested father to go to the Father-Daughter picnic with me...and instead of setting time aside for an afternoon of meaningful companionship, Father McCain just hands me a $5.00 bill and gently urges me to let him get back to his business.

I find this whole thing very bizarre. I can't use that word enough. It just fits.

To think I used to like the guy. Deep down, I think McCain is still the same politician he used to be...he's just become a tool of Neoconservative string-pullers. Maybe so. And that's more than a little scary. If only we could pull back the American Hard-Right curtain for all to see, and expose who or what is behind it.

Republicans used to be awesome. Abraham Lincoln. Teddy Roosevelt. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Chuck Hagel, Arlen Specter, and Richard Lugar have been exceptional Republicans in the modern era, but they're like puddles of water surrounded by desert. I would once have included John McCain with them...but he has been seized by whatever force has purged the good Republicans and replaced them with Bizarro clones (Rick Santorum, Bill Frist, the sitting President, etc.)

Sinister man/organization/thing behind the curtain...let our people go!

The Daily Show had a killer routine tonight about Palin. I imagine it will become available for download tomorrow. If you get a chance, find the Samantha Bee skit that completely nails how condescending and ridiculous this choice is.

Harriet Myers II is exactly it!