Is this real?

This can’t be real, can it? Pinch me. I must be dreaming. Is it really true that 72 year-old John McCain (with a history of health problems) is the Brafia candidate for President, and he has chosen 44 year-old Sarah Palin (Sarah, who?) for his VP? I mean, is this serious? Or has the Brafia already conceded defeat and are just humoring an old war hero? To me, this is the single most boneheaded pick for a running mate, not only that I have ever witnessed, but is even beyond my imagination. I have tried everything, closing my eyes, meditating, swinging a dead cat around my head three times, burying a potato under the eaves of my house, reading the entrails of chickens, consulting my personal oracle (my son Julian), and even reading everything I can find on the internet about this pick, and I truly, absolutely, positively, unequivocally, genuinely, seriously, cross my heart and hope to die, cannot even conceive of this woman as President of the United States (presumably the first and most important qualification for being Vice President is the ability to take over the Presidency if necessary). Maybe if I got really drunk or something? I guess it must just be me because I see in the papers and on the web that Idaho Republicans are ecstatic about this choice. One of my readers reports that a staunch Republican he knows is “torqued” because McCain chose a woman. And many have come out in support of her by trying to find something positive to say about her. One Fox commentator claims she has Foreign Policy experience because Alaska is close to Russia. Apparently the utter absurdity of this has escaped some, as Cindy McCain actually repeated this on a national broadcast today. They cite her accomplishments: she was a soccer mom, she belonged to the PTA, she was a beauty queen, she was a small town mayor, she is (an as yet unproven) Governor of Alaska (for some 20 rather controversial months), and she rides snowmobiles, hunts wolves and moose, and eats mooseburgers, all the prerequisites anyone could really need to be President of the most powerful nation on earth, beset by monumentally difficult and intractable problems everywhere. They have to be kidding. They just cannot be serious about this (unless, of course, it is true that they are collectively the most dimwitted people on the face of the earth). Anyway, what do I know?

At least we are going to be spared the appearances of Bush and Cheney at the Brafia convention (if, indeed, it comes off). Hurricane Gustaf came at just the right moment to give Bush/Cheney an excuse (however pitiful) to not have to appear (much to the relief of most everyone). After all, they have to be on alert in the White House to do nothing, as usual. John McCain and Sarah Palin are reportedly going to fly right into the teeth of the hurricane and battle it single-handedly (or something like that). McCain may even make his acceptance speech right there where all the action is. Whee! If part of the convention actually comes about, I wonder if anyone will challenge this ridiculous situation and simply refuse to accept her nomination? There must at least be some in the party that realize how bad this situation is (maybe not). A few have already suggested this pick has cost McCain any chance at all of winning the Presidency. I have thought all along that he couldn’t win and this should drive the final nail into the coffin (but remember, I am almost always wrong when it comes to electing Presidents and Governors).

Many in the MSM and elsewhere keep insisting this is going to be a close election. I have argued virtually from the beginning that Obama should win in a landslide. I still think so, especially after the McCain pick of the totally inexperienced and unqualified Palin. Now, if Obama does not, it can only be for one reason; American voters are not yet prepared to give up their absurd notions of white supremacy.

Favorite (short) poems:

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson