McCain is a crafty old SOB

From Gary Kamiya at Salon:

Palin is the pinup queen in that war. She's feisty, she's a mom, she's from a frontier state, she guns down wolves from the air, she's a devout Evangelical, she poses as a reformer, and she insults the Washington elites.

And large numbers of Americans think she's hot.

This latter point cannot be underestimated. Iraq may be a quagmire, a new cold war may be looming, the economy may be tanking and the world may be heading toward environmental doom, but the presidential race may be decided by the perceived doability of the governor of Alaska.

This is regrettably, astoundingly, almost certainly true.

It make me very, very sad that we're so far down the road to Bread and Circuses that this is true, but I'm convinced that McCain recognized the many ways Sarah Palin appeals to the people that voted in large numbers for George W Bush and have expressed reservations about Johnny Mac. And I'm absolutely sure that one or more of the younger staffers expressed the, "Dude, she's hot!" meme in a meeting or two....

For so long I thought we'd manage to avoid letting W play the role of Nero to completion, but now I see that half of the country is almost certainly going to be persuaded, especially given that the MSM is going to give her a pass. You almost wonder if she could have plugged her sister's ex with a few dozen pellets and still have gotten nominated...