Rev. Wright believes the US govt may have sponsored the AIDS epidemic.

Hmmmmmm....

Time magazine says over 30% of all Americans believe the govt had a hand in the 9/11 Twin Tower attacks.

If Obama could just get them all to vote for him!

Y'know, though, Joan -- optics do matter. You said it yourself. "The contrast of age and gender means McCain and Palin didn't look like running mates standing together today in Dayton." You don't say what you think they DID look like, but a May/December romance, or The Perks of Political Power, sprang into my mind.

I learned of the GOP veep pick by radio, so all I knew was the high, penetrating voice and phrasing (yes, very high school) and what the NPR Bright Bulbs were saying. But then I got an email from a high school classmate, a man of distinctly Old Republican tastes, someone I don't know very well, but he sends out emails to our class of '65 on a regular basis. In this case -- Subject: I'm on board! And the text of the email:

Giddy-UP, Trigger !!

How soon can I vote?

What's the Hold-UP?

There followed the heading "McCain for President" over a photo -- quite possibly a senior yearbook picture -- of a young and dewy Palin, head and shoulders and upper chest, she's evidently wearing a very low-cut garment, because not a sliver of it shows in the photo. (My classmate is great at finding just the thing in the internet storehouse.)

So I'm thinking: the veep pick contains the appeal to young and female and socially conservative voters, yes, but there's this other, undeniable unit of meaning. Old, politically powerful male, his vigor implied by pairing with young, energetic, fertile, and (let's admit it) good-looking female. That's the trope my classmate picked up on, isn't it? So... this is an appeal to the Slavering Geezer vote?

"'I don't think that has any effect on [the race],' said Colorado Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams..." Isn't HE going to look like Mr. Butterwouldn'tmeltinmymouth in a couple of years, when we have President Palin, a new Cold War, no EPA, no Democratic Party, a revival of back-alley abortions, creationism in the schools...

... and when the accepted wisdom among pundits is that John McCain's veep choice was the political masterstroke of the last half-century.

I bet when McCain's handlers heard about Bristol, they said, "THIS IS THE ONE."

Gary, I thought your story was funny as hell. Very insightful. Really nailed it.

Yes, id. An old fat geezer classmate of mine (high school, 1965) sent around an email headed "Sign me UP!" with comments like "Giddy UP, Trigger!" and that yearbook photo, you know the one, head and shoulders and not a scrap of clothing to be seen -- and I thought, "Reason and logic and sobriety are dead. McCain just boxed up the Slavering Geezer vote and took it home."

And then I read the other responses to your piece, and I was reminded of the flash I had (like many folks) a few days after the Second Coming: It's a trap. Sarah Palin is a TRAP. This is, hands down, the most devilish, most Satanic, most Beelzebuboid thing Karl Rove has ever come up with.

There is virtually no way you can win. Everything you can say against Saracuda comes back to bite ya. There's nothing you can criticize without alienating some big bunch of voters. And I fear they're right -- humor just proves to "them" what "we" are.

If Obama/Biden can face this down, they are serious superheroes. I have my doubts.

Though if we could galvanize every "community organizer" into action...

Here's what I'm afraid of -- and I see it happening, as the wrong-right voices whip and foment in their own way -- the Limbaugh-spinners will rush out ahead of the stampede and turn the herd in a really dangerous direction. So how can we get the greater public to read Glenn Greenwald, so they'll understand who has actually been raping them?

Sonia Sotomayor, No.

George W. Bush, Yes.

He's white, he has testicles, he comes from the right family and prep school. He's in.

They just didn't call it affirmative action then.

1. There are eight (8) Ivy League universities. Maybe there were only four originally, but there have been eight for a very long time. Can you name them? What, exactly, is the Ivy League? Well, what exactly is the Pac 10? Same same.

2. To get honors at an Ivy League university, don't you have to write an honors thesis? Doesn't it get a thorough critique by your committee, including members of your department's faculty and maybe someone outside it? Aren't there honors courses you must take and achieve a certain minimum grade?

3. Please, please can't we at least do away with "conversations between she and Alito"? In English, if that is your native language, it should be "conversations between her and Alito." If you have trouble with this, substitute the problem prepositional intro with "do it to." You wouldn't say, "Do it to she," would you? (Please tell me you wouldn't.) So then you'd have to say "Do it to HER... and Alito." Right? Whatever nightmare fantasies the sense of this may cause you, at least it will stay your keyboard fingers from grammar crimes.