Who?!?!?

From Paris, John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin seems bizarre.  Step back from the moment-to-moment campaign jostling and ask this question:  You are John McCain.  You think you will be elected President.  Who do you want as your V.P?  You'd think that the independent, strong, leader McCain would step up to the plate and give us someone just as solid and substantial as he is, someone who he could rely on for advice and counsel, and, more importantly, someone ready to take over the Presidency on Day One (McCain is how old?)  Someone like ... Joe Biden.  OK, not quite the same policy preferences there, but you get the idea.  But never, never would you expect that McCain would pick a young, very inexperienced, almost unknown woman from left field.

What this says to me is two things.  First, forget for the duration of the campaign the good old, open, accessible, say-what's-on-your-mind (I think "Straight Talk" was the phrase, wasn't it?) John McCain.  From now on, the political handlers will make all the calls.  Chalk one up there for Obama.  Second, erase from your mind the idea that John McCain is a politician who will put his "country first" all the time.  Level with us, John ... do you really, really think Sarah Palin is the most qualified person in the whole United States to take over if something happens to you.  Of course not.

What's happened is that John McCain has traded "straight talk" for what he sees as political expediency and has at the same time made, in my view, a big mistake, for the reasons discussed here and here.  Reading between the lines, the French press is appalled; I've watched three or four news programs on TV since the announcement, and each of them has shown that great footage of Ms. Paulin picking up a rifle or machine gun or whatever the hell it is, sighting through the scope, and putting her finger on the trigger.  They are wanting to communicate: Even more than a pistol-packing mama, what we've got here is a machine-gun-toting danger to the world.  (And then there's that hair.  Oh Sarah, oh Sarah, let down your long hair.)  [Sorry, I have the flu, perhaps delirium is at work; I mean no offense to those of you with the beehive thing, I used to love the B52s.]

Finally, I am completely, completely irked at Hillary Clinton.  I didn't believe it, I really didn't believe it, but after the convention, and after this story (Clinton Congratulates Palin) I'm ready to believe that she doesn't want to see Obama elected.  Given an opportunity to rip McCain's pick on any number of things, what does Hillary say?

“We should all be proud of Governor Sarah Palin's historic nomination, and I congratulate her and Senator McCain," Clinton, the first woman to win a presidential primary, said in the statement. "While their policies would take America in the wrong direction, Governor Palin will add an important new voice to the debate.”

Yeah.