but there's one aspect you probably wouldn't think of because you're not a woman...

And it goes like this. Of all of the incredibly capable, thinking, intelligent, informed potential female candidates out there...THIS is the woman who has a shot at the White House?

As a woman, I am pissed blue, not only because Hilary was so thoroughly shat upon while this knucklehead gets a free pass but also because Palin, to our infinite horror, is representing Women in the Big Leagues. And she couldn't be less qualified. So our chance at history is being destroyed.

I couldn't give a crap less what she looks like. I couldn't be less "jealous," which is the snarky little criticism all thinking women get when they look at this moron and scream "WTF????"

But after thirty years of knowing what kind of effort is involved to be taken seriously in a man's world, the constant, sustained, exhausting effort to be that much smarter, that much more prepared, that much more eloquent, that much ballsier...to have this woman fail to meet that standard in any way...

Yes. It's utterly and completely enraging.

I thought this would be good for a laugh, but it's just too accurate to be funny.

I am somewhere Beyond Beyond that anyone with four aligning brain cells could consider this person capable of running our country.

Or that the chucklehead who put her on his ticket is worthy of a vote.

Such a loss...my first reaction was, "oh no!!!"

My second was, "What a well-lived and classy life he had."

My third was, "Crap, one fewer vote for Obama."

Maybe I'm a little obsessed?

P.S. fbair, it's "stutters," honey.

listen to your gut. It's SCREAMING at you. Not only is it trying to tell you that something really, really stinks about the fact that he's willing to risk hurting his "live-in girlfriend" just to check things out with someone he only knows in cyberspace, but it's even telling you that you shouldn't have moved in with anyone who can't even choke out "I love you," no matter how half-hearted.

There is a price that you will pay if you stay with someone who isn't really that into you. And the price is that you will slowly, almost invisibly but inevitably, become convinced that you aren't worthy of being truly loved.

Trust me. I've done it. I dumped him after four years, but it took another dozen before I was able to address the underlying chaos it caused in my view of myself.

Run. Don't look back. Better to spend the rest of your life with hope and alone, than hopeless and with him in whatever lame and compromised form that might involve.

Refusing to acknowlege that lack of experience as being a problem is a very very big red flag.

If you can't admit your ignorance, you can never seek the knowledge that would make you less so, for fear of revealing it.

She is worse than ignorant. She is unteachable.

Your column has degenerated steadily in the past weeks...and now this?

You're either too busy to pay any attention or you're just mailing it in.

And you're wrong...it IS tragic...because it's NOT funny.

It does. Unfortunately, the president it makes him resemble is George W. Duck, prevaricate, deny, when in doubt, invoke God as the answer to all things, ignore facts, lie, lie, lie...

Yes it's Bush Lite, coming to an Executive office near you.

What astounds me is that the McCainites don't see these machinations for the kick in the teeth insult to their intelligence that it is. The message is this: "We know you're not bright enough to understand issues or want to hear about them. Therefore, we will give you grampa and a pretty lady to vote for, and as long as we can keep ducking any unscripted media moments when you might actually be forced to see through this strategy, we just might make through the election."

Call it the Scheherazade Strategy. They've only got another forty days and nights to get through, do they have enough stories?

I saw an interesting distinction the other day, when someone was ranting (as I am wont to do on a regular basis) about the right-wing fascists on talk radio (I'm talking to you Rush, and those other bozos whose names I can't even stand to type).

These hectoring pinheads are constantly railing against the "liberal media" yet they don't consider themselves media...and the distinction that was being made is that they are COMMENTATORS, not journalists.

Ergo, if you're just commenting, you don't have to worry about anything as trivial as journalistic ethics, reality or the truth.

I truly believe that this is a major cause of the end of public integrity that you so eloquently addressed. These radio personalities can trot out the most blatant fabricated crap, yet there are no consequences. In fact, there's apparently a huge non-thinking segment of the public out there who swallow this garbage down like it's Pabst Blue Ribbon and think they're being told "the truth." Remember, "Rush is right."

They're being brainwashed, pure and simple, yet they don't have a clue. And they're the ones that voted in Bush the second time...

It's so far past frightening that there are no words.