Gondolas at the ready?

Unlike the news from Lake Wobegon, it was not a quiet week in America.  Hurricane Gustav  sent politicians scurrying for the correct response to the potential tragedy, although there was little that the Republican team could do to silence  the repeated  reminders of Katrina, which happened on their  guy's watch.  And despite the distraction, there was the matter of  the Alaskan  Barracuda who guides herself through troubled waters with a moral compass and an escort of right-wing  pundits and preachers declaring her to be the newest star in the electoral firmament.  I won't even go into the undertow  that has already moved into her path to the Potomac.     

I was particularly interested in her defense team's effort to push back the doubters.   Cindy McCain, for example, thought that Palin  could easily  step into John's shoes on foreign policy inasmuch as Alaska was practically the next-door neighbor of Russia.  If need be with our overstretched military, I suppose,  it would be a simple matter to invite an armada of gondolas from the Italian navy  to protect the Bering Strait.   And as long as we're on the subject of protecting us from our enemies,  I thought the comment by a Republican delegate from Wooster was worth a couple of stars.   She liked McCain, she said, because he would know what to do in the the event we are attacked.  Lady, we've already tried that!

Now there are reports in the Washington Post, New York Times  and elsewhere that the vetting of Palin's personal history was as sloppy as a hastily arranged fire drill. The Times said he chose Palin "moments" after his only face-to-face meeting despite the fact that he really wanted Joe Lieberman. (It is reminiscent of the moment Bush looked into Putin's heart and instantly declared him to be a decent pal.)  Poor Joe.  It was a brutal snub after he and Lindsey Graham had fluttered around McCain like seraphim during the primaries. 

Will there be more to come? Probably.   Think how much easier it would have been to close the gender gap if he had been independent enough to choose, say, Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe of Maine.  He didn't.   Instead, the proud "maverick"  paid servile homage to the ever-demanding Big  Brother of Republican politics.