I knew that John McCain was devious, but I didn't realize just how devious. I have just learned from a credible source, who has asked not to be named because he's not a real person, who McCain plans to select as a running mate. I'll give you some hints:
- years of experience at the highest levels of government
- substantial economic and foreign policy expertise
- swing state associations
- appeals to working class voters
- endorsed by key conservative leaders
- appeals to moderate Democrats and disaffected Clinton supporters
- combat experience

Yes, John McCain intends to select Hillary Clinton as his running mate. She'll release her convention delegates all right...to McCain. Theirs will be the new Unity ticket. In an unprecedented strategy, her loyal delegates intend to write in John McCain at the convention. The Democratic National Convention doesn't permit write-ins, but Hillary intends to convene an emergency session of the Rules and Bylaws Committee to push through the changes. If she doesn't succeed, her delegates plan to write McCain's name on paper airplanes and throw them at Barack Obama which is bound to alarm the Secret Service and result in the ejection of elected delegates, ultimately causing a convention riot not seen since supporters of Teddy Roosevelt spit goobers at William Taft in 1912. The paper airplanes also offer subtle homage to McCain's experience as a naval pilot.

This news was as flabbergasting to me as I'm sure that it is to you. But in retrospect, it makes too much sense to be false. This strategy has obviously been planned since at least March, when Clinton compared McCain favorably to Obama, arguing that the latter had not crossed "the commander-in-chief threshold." It also explains why she spent so much time attacking Obama and so little time attacking McCain. And the gas tax holiday proposals championed by McCain and Clinton were clearly coordinated to put pressure on Obama. Finally, in light of the news, it's obvious that McCain's recent ads appealing to Clinton supporters are not cynical attempts to manipulate angry Clinton supporters, they're the first stages of a joint campaign.

Skeptics will argue that Clinton is far too liberal for most Republicans, who spent years demonizing her, but key right-wing leaders have warmed to Clinton in the last few months. She has been endorsed by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulture, and Richard Mellon Scaife, and my source tells me that Chuck Norris has already been working for the ticket behind the scenes. Scaife's private lunch with Hillary was likely an early strategy session, and Limbaugh's Operation Chaos was certainly meant to prepare his conservative ground troops for the fall campaign. Furthermore, everyone knows that unlike Democrats, Republicans will put aside their differences and vote for their nominee in the end. Finally, as most pundits have noted, this election is not about policy; it's about personality. Polls show that Clinton and McCain supporters have a natural affinity for one another's candidates and share a mutual intense hatred for Barack Obama. Most voters will happily toss aside their cherished principles in favor of a sticking it to the One.

As an Obama supporter, this development is obviously of great concern to me, but I also feel a sense of relief. Democratic unity has seemed so strained and artificial. Putting the Obama critics together behind the one candidate draws the political division where it belongs. The U.S. is not red and blue anymore, it's black and white. So unleash the blogs of war, it's time to get angry again.