Sarah Palin is not the disease that is killing the McCain campaign, but merely a symptom of the true illness. McCain, Davis and Schmidt are the ones that infected McCain's campaign with a fatal disease by being erratic, hate-based, irrational and mud-slinging. We only have to look at how the campaign was run to imagine what a McCain presidency would look like and let me tell you, it looks from here to have the potential to be even worse than the Bush Administration. I am very glad to see the collapse of Rovian politics and I hope that the Republican Party will now join the rest of the world in the 21st century.

This puts me in mind of Mr. Micawber, the loveable debtor from Dickens' David Copperfield, who constantly lectured that if you're just a little bit ahead financially, life is fair, but if you're a little bit behind (as he was), life is ruinous.

So it is with the polls, and politics. Poor John McCain runs the same campaign as Bush '88 (similar attacks, controversial conservative young VP). But where Bush was ahead by a few points now, and had everyone who mattered supporting him, McCain is behind by a few and is savaged from all directions. Now, apparently, he is turning on Palin, or vice versa. Losing always sucks.

As for the Joan Walsh point about Palin being called a diva, a rogue, and a whack job, it strikes me as somewhat comical. I recall the Iran-Contra days when a rogue or a loose cannon was someone who subverted Congress by diverting illegal monies to fund a secret war. Today it is a person who inserts a simple line in a speech defending herself, when her self-appointed handlers prefer she act otherwise. Somehow, the words are the same, but the impact is different.

The Republicans were always likely to lose this year. Stevenson ditched his own party establishment, when Truman had similar numbers as Bush, and it didn't work for him. It is a wonder McCain/Palin have any chance at all.

"Barnes and his buddy Bill Kristol are now, of course, completely, like, pissed..."

Brava! Go Joan, Go Joan, Go Joan.

(OK, I'm coming from the vantage point of one of my favorite movie lines of all time, in "The Gods Must Be Crazy"..."So, do you work here in Botswana?"...)

Joan-

I read with interest and general agreement with your analysis of the imploding McCain-Palin campaign. Although Palin is being made a scapegoat for McCain's failures, I feel she bears almost equal responsibility for the campaign's woes simply by her acceptance of the VP nomination knowing her limitations. I also have little sympathy for Palin as she has enthusiastically joined McCain in the low-brow and sometimes despicable attacks on Obama.

You cited Palin being called a "whack job" as an example of sexist attacks on her. I beg to differ--"whack job", which means stupid or crazy person, applies to both genders equally and I have not heard it used as a sexist putdown.

Thanks for your informative--and often fun--column.

Political attacks always devolve into the personal to some extent, and that means they will focus on whatever aspect of the target's identity is convenient. So, Sarah Palin (who uses every bit of her female character when and where she believes it will be to her benefit) is attacked in terms that will relate to her being a woman. But is that really so different than attacking someone in a way that refers to their religion or ethnicity or other personal identity? Reagan and W. were mocked as "cowboys," Bill Clinton ridiculed for his libido, Obama attacked using his race and alleged muslim religion, and so on. There is both overt and latent racism, sexism and many other "isms" lurking in the hearts of people. It doesn't mean we should condone it, but it is what it is.

The golden rule, central to so many world religions, suggests that Sarah Palin should expect that which she hath dished out. She gets no sympathy from this quarter.

Clearly Joan Walsh has some sort of celebrity obsession with Palin. For weeks after Palin was no longer front-page material elsewhere, she was still front-page material at Salon. The letters at the time regularly pointed that out and begged it to stop.

Now we have two consecutive columns by Joan taking pity on Palin and blaming McCain for Palin's numerous problems on the campaign.

Get over your "girl crush", Joan. (As your broadsheet columnists would say.) Palin doesn't swing that way, and you're embarrassing yourself with your public swooning.

As a lover of Godzilla movies goin' back to my kiddie days in the early '70's, when Godzilla was the way Godzilla was/is always meant, and always should be shown on the silver screen (a guy in a rubbery reptile suit) I gotta say you're kinda off on the Zilla analogy.

Palin is more of a Kong than a Zilla. More in fact like the malfunctioning Meca-Kong in Inoshiro Honda's, extra-cheese classic - "King Kong Escapes."

I wanna refer all who are interested in how things might turn out between Palin and her Republican handlers, to Japaneese monster maker Inoshiro Honda's, Toho Studios, Giant robot ape epic.

Lots of toy ralroads get blown up, there's an arch-villain bent on world conquest, a pretty damsel, a dimpled Dudley do right hero dude, and a giant robot ape, built by the malevolent Dr. Who - PLUS the REAL King Kong (played of course by a guy in an ape suit).

Yeah, this is gettin' a little confusing.

Rent the movie and I think this flick will open some eyes. Keep a keen eye on Dr. Who the evil Frankenstein creator of Robo-Kong. Watch this ambitious cat especially close. He might remind you of somebody. This guy's got mcCain & McCampaign written all over him.

The movie's climax between dueling dudes in ape suits, trashing tram cars, sky scrapers, toy cars, trains and plains, and just generally makin' a metropoltan mess out of Tokyo, might be a potent portent of what a McCain presidency might be something like, should, god forbid, such a thing come to pass.

As for Palin, I think Palin is personified in the picture by both Kongs. Flesh 'n blood Kong, and Robot Kong. I dunno, some people might disagree. What do I know! I see kind of a ying-yang thing goin' on between the two Kongs. Crazy I'm sure, but Kong is more complex than you might imagine.

Anyway, I dunno. Check it out. "King Kong Escapes."