Four thoughts on the Palin selection:
First, how remarkable is it that with the first African-American on a major party ticket, this election turns out to be more about gender in the end, than about race? Hopefully, this election will prove that despite what the McCain team apparently thinks, women just aren't that gullible.
Second, John McCain's last-minute, hurried selection of Sarah Palin, after just one meeting and a single phone call, and without even bothering to conduct the thorough vetting he gave to more serious choices like Mitt Romney, Tom Ridge, Joe Lieberman or even Tim Pawlenty,  says a lot about the role of age in this election. Clearly, McCain comes from a generation (and an ideology) that dismisses women as serious people. He seems to have decided that Palin fit the bullet points ("maverick + pro-life + female,) so it doesn't matter what she actually thinks about "big things" like Iraq (which turns out to be not much); the war on terror (who knows?), Russia, Georgia, Pakistan... or whether she even understands the job being offered to her. (Sounds a lot like the way he chose Cindy McCain: rich+prettier than current wife+lives where he could win a congressional seat...) Yesterday, as the roll-out was taking place, right wing radio hack Glenn Beck was actually gushing that one of Palin's qualifications is that "she's HOT!" I can almost hear McCain, disappointed that he couldn't get Lieberman on the ticket, saying, "Ok go with that Palin broad. She's a dame, just like Hillary's a dame, and the chicks will dig that." 
Third, the Republican Party can never again accuse Democrats of playing identity politics. While the Democrats held a contest, and the African-American candidate won it fair and square by getting more votes than the other candidates and conducting a better campaign, Republicans have once again thrown a scantily qualified "demographic appointment" at the wall, hoping to curry favor with the associated group . George I did it (to disastrous effect) with Clarence Thomas, and here we go again with Sarah Palin. [Ironically, the one politician who at least had the decency to appoint qualified demographic candidates was George W. Bush, who appointed Collin Powell and Condi Rice for top jobs, though both have been disappointing. (Bush later tried to put Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court, but that was more of a Texas buddy thing than a pander...)]
Fourth: There's no longer a question of which presidential candidate makes careful judgments that put the country before political expediency. Barack Obama passed on the chance to make headlines by choosing Hilary Clinton, instead picking a man he thought would better help him govern, and who, like Hillary, could very much step in and become president if need be. As for McCain, by making such an unserious, pandering choice, who couldn't possibly be the person he feels is most qualified to step in should anything happen to him as a septugenarian, four-time cancer survivor president, John McCain has closed the door on the notion that he's fit to be president. The Obama team should hit that theme every day between now and November.

Today is John McCain's 72nd birthday. And on that day, and with Russia and Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan on the table, not to mention this country's domestic crisis, he picks as his running mate a thinly experienced, 44-year-old first-term governor and former mayor of a tiny city in Alaska, who has no national security experience, and little governing experience (a glaring deficiency even near-miss McCain staffer Ron Fournier pointed out today.) Beyond undercutting the central plank of his campaign (experience,) doesn't the Palin pick also undermine McCain's larger (anti-Obama) theme of "country first?"

After all, it's clear to any sentient person that McCain didn't pick Palin because it was in the best interests of the country, or because she is prepared to be president, but because he saw it as being in HIS short term best political interest. Not exactly "serving a cause greater than one's self-interest."

And how ironic that Ms. Palin praised Geraldine Ferraro in her introductory speech today, since McCain clearly chose her for the same reason Walter Mondale chose Ferraro: demographic gimmickery and pure politics, something Ferarro has admitted about her own selection in 1984.

Back then, TIME Magazine wrote the following about Ferarro:

"Gerri passes all the tests," says Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly, a Connecticut Democrat. "She is photogenic, she is bright, she has worked, she has brought up children, she is the right age." But is she qualified to be Vice President? Ferraro is the first to admit that she is being considered mainly because of her gender, not her qualifications.

What's more, McCain apparently made the decision after meeting Palin after little more than a phone conversation:

(CNN) ... according to the McCain campaign, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee first met Palin in Washington at a February 2008 National Governors Association meeting. He was immediately impressed with the 44-year-old rising GOP star, and decided to consider her for the vice presidential slot.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis had several conversations with Palin throughout the vetting process, but McCain himself didn't speak with the Alaska governor until last Sunday — one day after Barack Obama named Joe Biden to his ticket. It was then McCain reached Palin by phone while she was at the Alaska State Fair to discuss the possibility of joining the ticket.

And yet, he's prepared to entrust the country into her hands should anything happen to him -- knowing that he is both a septugenarian and a four-time cancer survivor? As Paul Begala said tonight on poor Campbell Brown's show, if McCain does win, he (and many of the rest of us) will be hiding under our beds and sending him vitamins.

To get to Palin, McCain passed over a number of clearly more qualified candidates, including Mitt Romney, who might have lost the gig because of McCain's houses gaffe (together, they would have 13,) essentially pulling not just a Ferraro, but a female Clarence Thomas out of his hat.

Maybe he flinched at the possibility of being hit by the Obama-Biden team for leading a rich-man's ticket, or maybe he was brushed back by the successful Democratic convention and hard-hitting Obama acceptance speech. Either way, John McCain cannot today be said to have demonstrated the steadiness or judgment he claims his opponent is lacking.  Instead, he has shone himself to be more than willing to put politics, and petty political gamesmanship first, without regard to the impact his decisions could have on the country.