Her madness could have gotten innocent people hurt, maybe killed, but she is indeed mad and in need of treatment. I hope she gets it and I hope that it includes plastic surgery when she recovers enough to grasp what she did.

I do think McCain and Palin have some responsibility in that they fired the guns of racism in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. They persuaded a sick woman to mutilate herself but what about the crazies who would shoot Obama? A madman changed the course of history in 1968 by shooting Robert F. Kennedy when he was running for President. A madman, a racist, could do it now. McCain/Palin would be responsible at least in part.

And this above all, to thine own self be true for it follows as the night the day that thou canst not be false to any other man. Remember that? From Hamlet. McCain forgot it and it has cost him dearly. It will also cost the GOP dearly as down-ticket races fall to the Democratic onslaught. McCain sacrificed his integrity, his strongest asset.

I have a feeling that graduate students in political science and sociology are going to be writing dissertations and lengthy papers on the choice of Palin as the VP. I have a feeling, too, that dissertation directors and committees will be moaning "Oh, Lord, not another one!!" for years to come.

There are so many factors, both strategic, tactical and demographic, that go into something like this and into parsing why it has proven to be so dismal a failure. The way women are perceived will be the meat and potatoes of women's studies programs. Books will be written, courses will be taught. The woman is a godsend to academia. Who knows? Maybe even faculties of theology will get involved. Bonanza!!! As Freud said, "thar's gold in them thar ills" so maybe even analytic institutes will have seminars on "what do women want" again.

Someone mentioned Huckabee and I have wondered why, if McCain wanted to court the evangelical/right element of his party, he didn't choose someone like Mike Huckabee, who has the kind of instincts that would have made it a horse race. Huckabee is the genuine article but also exudes decency, not a shark-like intensity like Palin. He doesn't do the "by gosh, by golly, you betcha" that makes middle-of-the-road skin crawl. He also knows something about the world, has ideas of his own and has been vetted by the public and by the debates.

Huckabee's views are 180 degrees removed from my own but he doesn't scare me. She does. She scares a lot of people and it is probably that which makes an electoral landslide for Obama probable.