The insight we can glean from this is that McCain is a maverick, but not a leader. McCain surrounded himself with people who didn't do their job well and and didn't push for a decision quickly enough to fully vet his choice and to create a strategy for the issues that would emerge. The bottom line: McCain and the people he selected to advise him exercised reckless and poor judgment. They exercised this poor judgment on the most "presidential" of decisions a candidate can make.

BUT, we need to move on. This election isn't about Palin or Biden. It is, contrary to Rick Davis' statement today "about the issues." The main issue is about which of the two candidates is the better choice to bring change to the messes of the past 8 years.

For those of us who support Obama we need to remember why we do. I went back and listened to his speech on race tonight and all of the Palin stupidity and the McCain/GOP fear-mongering spectacle drifted away. I remembered why I am so engaged in this election: because I have hope that we can rise above the dirty, mud-slinging of politics and focus on the possibilities that this country can be.

Barack Obama has been amazingly focused on what matters to all of us. I am sure, much to his advisers' initial chagrin he has had to pull everyone forward and out of the muck and back on point. He is disciplined, on a mission of change and has ignored the Palingates as he presses forward. Obama supporters have been trapped in the soap operah that is Sarah Palin. We are off track and need to focus on what it is that we are fighting for and not take the time to look back at what we are fighting against.

Many people have asked for privacy and compassion for Bristol Palin. That's fine. But the real issue is that Sarah Palin will fight privacy and compassion for all the other teen-age girls of America. Sarah is against sex education, against contraception, against abortion, against reproductive choice. Sarah Palin is proud of the choice her daughter has made. But she would prohibit all other American women from having a choice. She is one Supreme Court Justice away from achieving that goal.