As I mentioned, I think McCain would be foolish if he didn't select a relatively young woman as his running mate. I don't think that woman is going to be Condoleeza Rice as she has way, way, way too much Bush baggage (on the other hand, since McCain seems to be perfectly happy to run on Bush's foreign policy platform, maybe he will do so, which will surely cause a thoroughly crushign defeat in November). For this reason his best choice is probably Kay Bailey Hutchison. However, I find it hard to believe that women for whom gender identity/women's empowerment is a major concern would vote Republican under most circumstances, and I don't think that the fear that feminists who were Hillary supporters will vote for a Republican ticket that has a woman on it, as a gesture of gender solidarity.

So what's the point of having a woman on the ticket? To show moderate and swing voters that the Republican Party is not the exclusive domain of middle-aged/elderly white dudes. The Republicans will probably gain some swing voters, mostly female, if they put a woman on the ticket--but they will *not* get most Hillary supporters. In other words, the treasure trove of Southern white voters, male and female, to be gotten from Webb on the ticket far surpasses the losses that the Democrats will suffer by putting two males on the ticket.

The whole point of this article is that the technology and tactics employed did *not* destroy with no risk to the soldiers involved. The point is that the nature of fighting a counterinsurgency of this kind requires going out in small numbers and exposing soldiers to extreme amounts of risk in an extremely tense and dangerous environment. This kind of stress and fear results in the bad decision-making that led to the killings described. Nevertheless a major function of the NCO corps and, especially, the officer corps is to maintain a morally proper environment in the face of bad situations and difficult decisions, which the officers in the battalion clearly failed to do--indeed, they apparently actively contributed to the degradation of moral decision-making in the sniper section.

Individual responsibility is important; the snipers on the ground made the wrong decisions and should have been punished, but it is disgraceful that the only guy to face jail time, out of everybody involved, was the lowest-ranking enlisted soldier.

Among the greatest tragedies of this occupation is the way it has degraded the moral fabric of the armed forces.

I will certainly defer to first-hand knowledge from a Virginian, but the idea that Webb had the campaign "handed to him" on a silver platter by the absurd George allen seems far-fetched. He unseated a sitting Senator who had been a popular Governor (winning the election by the largest margin in recent Virginia history). I would instead argue that Allen had all the advantages and pissed them away, and that Jim Webb is lucky to be where he is. The fact that Webb got lucky does not mean he is not an excellent choice for the VP slot.

Re: Robert Rubin, an NYC-born, Miami-raised Jewish investment banker is really, really not what a party who has issues with 'elitism' issues, and problems in appealing to working-class and rural white Americans, wants on its ticket. He certainly did a fine job as Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury. So why not make him, you know, Secretary of the Treasury?

Clintonite childishness aside, I think the race is Obama's to lose (especially now that Bob Barr has entered the race). If he wants to have a chance, John McCain will need to pick a running mate that demonstrates that the GOP isn't just the party of middle aged/elderly white guys. It seems critical to me for McCain to pick a female--this will be especially important if, as I suspect, the Democratic ticket is all-male. Kay Bailey Hutchison seems like a logical choice, and one that I have suggested before: she's a Governor, which balances McCain as a Senator; she's relatively young and can appeal to independent females who are into the gender-identity thing.

Her disadvantage is that she is from a Southern state that the GOP is likely to carry anyway. Since John McCain is also from a Southern state that the GOP is likely to carry anyway, so KBH doesnt bring a whole lot of value-added in this regard. This made me think about female Republican governors from the Northeast, and naturally I thought of Christine Todd Whitman. If McCain goes this route he will have an excellent chance to present the public with the image of a moderate/centrist ticket, but risks alienating the right-wing base. With Bob Barr in the race, this may not be something he can do and he may need to tack to the right. This is actually what makes McCain's tssk so daunting, in my opinion (both in terms of VP picks and his campaign strategy in general)--if he tacks to the center, he can easily lose the crazy base (either to Barr or to just sitting out); if he tacks to the right, he can lose independents and Reagan Democrats to Obama.