Governor Palin has everything McCain said was wrong with Obama.

Since I’m getting up there in years myself, I understand that John McCain might be thinking a lot about the hereafter. That’s walking into another room and then saying to yourself, “Now, what am I here after?” It starts to happen when you get to be the age that McCain and I are. So I guess he just sorta ‘forgot’ his talking points about Obama.

And I also understand getting distracted by someone who was a finalist in the Miss Alaska beauty contest. Age doesn’t dull your appreciation of some things. And McCain does have an established record of going after younger, attractive women. He recently said that his second wife Cindy ought to enter the “Miss Buffalo Chip” beauty contest at the motorcycle rally in Sturgis. She should have done it! She would have had a good chance. I would have paid to watch!

One good thing about this election – adding Michelle Obama into the equation – no matter what happens, national beautification will spike up in January 2009.

But I guess he ‘just didn’t mean it’ when he said all those unkind things about Obama. Because those same unkind things apply to his choice for VP.

* Experience

As Bill Clinton would say, “Give me a break!” She graduated in journalism from the University of Idaho! That and a partially completed single term as Governor makes her qualified to take over as President? But then, she could hardly make a bigger mess than Bush has.

* Celebrity

I’m happy to see McCain back away from this one. People who are popular and attractive often turn out to have talent at something else. For example, Schwarzenegger is doing a pretty fair job as Governor of California. The “celebrity” label was always a bogus attack anyway. It only made me conclude that Karl Rove’s operatives in the McCain campaign had run out of ideas.

In fact, I like McCain’s choice for VP a lot more than most of the other choices that were up in the air. And that’s good, because if you simply take mortality statistics at face value, there’s a better than fair chance that a man of Senator McCain’s age will simply fall over before his term would be up. So if you vote for the McCain-Palin ticket, be well prepared for President Palin.

It does make you wonder why he did it. Most of the possible reasons, unfortunately, point in the direction of continued control of the McCain campaign by the neo-con right wing.

* Palin has a large family and has established her credentials as opposing women’s reproductive rights.

* She’s a big supporter of drilling for more oil, and in particular, drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

* She’s a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and loves to go into the Alaska wilderness and kill things.

No word yet on her policy about negotiating with Iran in the Middle East. But it would sure be fun to see how she would get along with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or even King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.