McCain-Palin: A Big Snowball's Chance in Hell?

By Si Dunn

Is it bold...or just bizarre?

John McCain's pick for vice president appears to be both at the same time.

Ultimately, however, it will turn out to be just a slightly bigger snowball, once it starts melting in the hell of American presidential politics.

These amazingly troubled times cry out for a stronger and more qualifed #2 to stand a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Calling up the "aggressively pro-life" commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard--brave and noble though that unit may be--is not a sound act of presidential decision-making on Maverick McCain's part.

Gov. Sarah Palin surely is a rising Republican star (particularly with her political nickname, "Barracuda"). But a bolder and more grounded pick would have been Glenn Close, who, after all, has more national, international and universal experience, serving both as Harrison Ford's vice president in Air Force One and Jack Nicholson's First Lady in Mars Attacks!, AND as a Supreme Court justice in The West Wing. Hey, and she also has narrated a documentary on George and Martha Washington. That, my friends, is experience.

Faced with new threats to European security by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his presidential da-man, Dmitry Medvedev, what would a President Palin do, based on her national and international track record thus far? Aggressively condemn their stances on abortion? Throw snowballs across the Bering Strait and send dog-sled troops into Siberia to try to force regime change?

Bottom-line predictions from this pundit: (1) Joe Biden's gonna make moose-burgers out of her in the vice presidential debate. And (2), the Bush/McCain-Palin ticket will have only a big snowball's chance in hell once it starts melting down over the next few days and weeks.

Gov. Sarah Palin indeed may be a political barracuda. But the media's thousands of tiger sharks now are circling, and they just see a fresh new fish sandwich in the sea.

In the new age of instant journalism, instant Swift Boating, instant attack ads, and instant disinformation campaigns, it's still a long, long time until November.

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