I'm surprised at the number of people who think Palin will compete strongly for the 2012 or 2016 ticket. I don't think so.

Palin is very weak on the issues, and my impression of her is that she will not go to school for the next four years to get up to speed. Palin strikes me as a "dance with the guy who brought you" type. She got where she is relying exclusively on charisma, and that's the path she is going to stick to, to the bitter end. Maybe I'm wrong and we'll see a policy wonk emerge, but I doubt it. She can't get any more charisma than she has, so if she doesn't get more knowledge, she will never be one whit better than she is now. And now, close to 50% of Americans hate her guts.

In a way she is like Hillary Clinton, except that Hillary is a much superior intellect who has shown that she can learn. If Hillary, with her brains, couldn't overcome her negatives, how will Palin do it?

And another thing. The GOP is in disarray right now. It needs visionary leadership, another Goldwater, another William Buckley. It does not need another populist. The populist appeal of the GOP is fading. Palin is like a fabulous stagecoach built the same day the Model T came out. She is good at what she does, but the GOP won't be needing someone with her talents for quite some time.

Remember, the GOP rejected several candidates more attractive to its base to take McCain. They did this because they sensed the old Republican line would not sell in 2008. Then they blew it all by not letting McCain be McCain.

Palin isn't close to being the answer to the GOP's puzzle. She needs to go back to Alaska and finish up what could be a rewarding career in state politics.

As a Catholic who reads Catholic websites I have been frequently subjected to this bullc**p about how voting for a pro-choice candidate is a sin.

I am sick of it.

Christianity teaches free will. It says that we are all agents of freedom and that we will be held responsible for what WE do, not what other people do. If I vote for a candidate, it means I think that candidate will do the right thing in office, or at least will do better than the other guy. A vote is not a stamp of approval. I am pro-life, but I don't think I should be held responsible for other people's choices.

If a woman has a abortion, that act is on her conscience, not mine. I didn't tell her to do it, or encourage the act in any way. If she were to ask, I would counsel her against the abortion. The sin is on her hands.

Here is their thinking: if I vote for somebody who is pro-choice, I am supporting somebody who might nominate somebody for judge who might not overturn Roe v. Wade and therefore somebody might have an abortion. I am at best a third-hand actor in this chain. How silly is that? My vote is not to blame for abortion. The people who want abortions are to blame for abortion.

Christianity has always recognized that the "enabler" shares some responsibility in sin, but it is primarily an individualist faith in which each person stands trial for his or her misdeeds. This moral contagion in which everybody is responsible for the sins of everybody else is not very biblical. It stems mostly from nanny Christians who believe, as Ambrose Bierce said, that the "New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor."

I'm no old-timer, but I have a clear memory of political history going back to the Carter campaign of 1980. Obama has been called a terrorist, a Marxist, a Muslim, an Arab, a communist, and a radical socialist. In my lifetime, I don't ever remember invectives like that thrown at any political candidate.

Even Clinton, in the dark days of the Lewinsky scandal, was never called anything like that. Anyone with eyes can tell the reason Obama is getting this treatment is racism. Plain an simple.

Obama wants to be elected, so he won't call them on it. Yet. But after election day, when all this is sorted out, the word racism will float to the surface. Obama will never say it, but I lot of people will.

The Republicans have sold their credibility for the short short term gain of scaring up a few more votes. But they will pay a huge price for this in the long run.

I intend to do my part to make sure they pay the price -- every penny.

I know the abortion refusal thing freaks some people out, but I really don't think it will have any practical impact.

Those of us in the medical profession knew, going in, that we would face issues like abortion. We all have developed a personal policy about these issues and will live with it, no matter what the law says.

I don't do abortions but if a patient asked me where a clinic was, I'd tell them. There's no point in hiding the information; the patient's going to get there anyway. Many of us are uncomfortable with emergency contraception but we understand that women who need it are usually in a bad way. I don't think I would refuse to give it, although I would explain carefully to the patient why it is different from ordinary contraception.

The bottom line is that it will still be at the discretion of the doctors. Doctors are largely Republican but at work we don't take marching orders from anybody. I'm not always confident about what doctors will do, but in this case I am. No doctor will change his or her clinical practice based on this rules change. Won't happen.