I was trying to wrap my mind around McCain’s Palin pick yesterday. The pandering to women thing is obvious, but there has to be more to it than that. The brilliance of this move, if you will (and I use the term advisedly), comes in how it appeals to the very men who we might otherwise expect to protest the loudest because she’s a woman. But she’s their kind of woman, you see, the right kind, so that’s different. She’s from the tribe. Plus, she’s a hottie! She is the female version of George W. Bush in 2000: young, regular (this time for real), attractive, controllable. Those who make her will presume to own her.

Do you see how this is a brilliant pick if your emotional development stunted at age 14? Do you see how this might be very useful if John McCain drops dead, and a bunch of Old White Men want a new puppet to play with? Why should the corporate masters take a risk on Obama/Biden and have to lobby and cajole a little when they can simply have their way with McCain/Palin? If he dies they get a redo. All they have to do is pick someone with lots of the ‘right’ kind of foreign policy experience, like…say…Joe Lieberman. Then you have the refreshed Bush/Cheney dynamic with new blood: the dope up front selling and pretending to drive, and the boss in the back seat giving directions and counting the money. If the talking heads decide she’s a good pick, John McCain probably does have a deadly disease. The ‘criticism’ that she is one heartbeat away from the Oval Office? Indeed. I think that’s the point. (wink wink) Am I totally speculating? Yes I am, but you see my reasoning.

Here’s the lowdown from Alaska proper. Read the whole thing, because you need this information to inoculate yourself from the corporate media spin, and they will be spinning furiously to turn this into a good decision.

“Is this a joke?” That seemed to be the question du jour when my phone started ringing off the hook at 6:45am here in Alaska. I mean, we’re sort of excited that our humble state has gotten some kind of national ‘nod’….but seriously? Sarah Palin for Vice President? Yes, she’s a popular governor. Her all time high approval rating hovered around 90% at one point. But bear in mind that the 90% approval rating came from one of the most conservative, and reddest-of-the-red states out there. And that approval rating came before a series of events that have lead many Alaskans to question the governor’s once pristine image.

And for great background reading on Alaska politics, don’t miss this piece from The Washington Post titled, “I’ll sell my soul to the devil”. Un-Be-Leeevable. This is the cesspool John McCain has plucked Sarah Palin from.

“Let me count first here,” Allen said, shushing a former statehouse speaker as he counted out a bribe in video footage entered as evidence in the lawmaker’s September trial, one of several crowding the docket of the federal court here.

On another tape, Pete Kott, the former Republican speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives, crowed as he described beating back a tax bill opposed by oil companies. “I had to cheat, steal, beg, borrow and lie,” Kott said. “Exxon’s happy. BP’s happy. I’ll sell my soul to the devil.”

“Well, that will stay in this room,” one lobbyist said as a midnight session wound down.

And so on, and on and on.

PS. What are Obama’s weaknesses according to the right? Inexperienced, wrong race, shady religious background. What are Hillary’s? Elitist woman. Palin corrects for race, religion and class. Now the GOP can steal every argument the dems have made to support Obama and Hillary against the charges of inexperience and gender and adopt them as their very own creation. They will be the biggest supporters of young women in politics you’ve ever seen — holier than thou in their reverence. Any democrat who speaks against Palin will become a vile hypocrite and misogynist in their hands.

Will it work? Well, they have the corporate media shills as usual. Besides, all they have to do is get close enough to steal the rest, so it could work, disturbing as that is to contemplate.