I have been on record for a long time as believing that we would do almost as well in our leadership if we simply drafted people from the general population. Our political system creates self-indulgent clueless people who tend to develop highly inbred and centralized ideas about the role of government in our lives. You can practically see good people go rotten when they've been there long enough. Look at the '94 Republicans.

I personally don't regard years of being a big time political hack as a "plus." I never have. I pay attention to principles, ideologies, and political stances. Basic principles are what allow a person to construct responses to new situations, in the same way that phonics and the rules of language allow a child to read brand new words. Too many modern politicians have a set of index cards to respond to specific things, and if something comes in from a new direction, they freeze up, or go nuts. Like "see and say" readers hitting a new word.

I watched this board off and on for some time after the Palin selection, waiting for one person, just one, to look at the Democrats and ask the question, "aren't these people kind of...you know...going off the deep end?" Didn't happen.

The Democrats were caught off guard. McCain was supposed to pick someone "moderate." Maybe even a Democrat. Certainly someone the Democrats could deal with. Someone clearly marked on the index cards. Didn't happen.

The current lunacy was the Democratic response to a new and difficult situation. It went all the way to the top, and it's still going on. I for one was not impressed by their grace and intellectual performance under pressure. Putin? Ahmadinejad? Good Lord, the governor of Alaska was all it took to get the Democratic leadership gibbering.

Have you noticed that your side is running the bottom of the Republican ticket against the top of the Democratic one?

I wrote it back in April: the Democrats picked themselves another boob. Now that boob has picked a second one, and the Democrats have to eat it. The word "Eagleton" is showing up in speculations now connected more often to Biden than to Palin.

Hey, Democrats: get over Palin, already. I understand that liberals were cheerfully pounding the wooden cross into the dirt mound of conservatism, and suddenly it jumped up and kicked them in the fork. Deal with it like a man, instead of running around foaming at the mouth and running into trees.

Cripes, Nancy Pelosi has been two heartbeats--or technically, one and a third if you count Cheney--away from the Presidency for almost two years, and she's a complete political lunatic, elected from one of the most screwed up districts in California. You don't see me or anybody else whining about it.