so basically my answer is "no."

Michaele asked in the comments section what I thought about the selection of Sarah Palin for McCain's veep. My little fingers are exhausted from typing about caribou and I am a little-- no, make that very--cranky as all the bureaucratic mess of last week appears to finally be reconciling itself but I am tired from working so hard this weekend and I was tired when I got the news about Sarah Palin-- where am I going with this... oh yah, I was really caught off guard, and the news of the selection had to make it through all that mess in my head AND then I wanted to come up with an actual cogent answer for Michaele. So it took me a while.

Ok, so she's a woman. I'm glad that the Republicans finally decided to be so progressive, you know, pushing 40 years after the womens movement and ~30 years since they last had a female chair of the RNC and 20 years after the Democrats had a female veep nominee. So yah, first glance it's kinda cool, girl power and women having it all and what not. I was even a teensy bit excited that Catherine Rymph might have to reevaluate her stand on the death of Republican feminism.

But then I look again and it's like, wait a minute. McCain and the conservative media machine has been waaaaay aggressive in trying to court the jilted Clinton-ites and it was like, oh, duh, isn't that strategically obvious! Thanks for not picking Dan Quayle all over again, but for goodness sakes John, do you really think that I will vote for you just because your VP would be a woman? Do you really think I'm that stupid?

Because frankly, despite the lack of womanity on the Democratic ticket, they actually represent my interests. Palin is anti-choice, has more experience on the city council than as governor, and is in bed (literally?) with Big Oil. She was selected clearly to appeal to women and evangelicals, and with her lack of experience (which totally kills McCain's ability to tout his own) I really don't see her as being selected for any reason other than that she's a woman. And being as she's a woman who differs from my stand on something like abortion (which is I wish was a non-issue but hey, it effects things like sex education and birth control that I do really, really care about) I really don't feel like she would be all that helpful for my agenda. I'm a little peeved that she's calling herself a feminist. While I think there can be a lot of kinds of feminists, I think Joe Biden is more my type. And anyways she should be careful calling herself one because Schlafly and her Eagles will come after her ass for that shit. Whew, this is getting ranty!

So basically I think McCain shouldn't have taken the risk with someone who is only superficially useful. The reality is, I would've never voted for him anyways, but to me this just confirms that McCain is not concerned about solving America's problems at all because if he was, he would've picked someone who actually had the ability to help him. Particularly when McCain's health is so precarious, I am really, really concerned that he was so cavalier in his choice. Who knows, maybe she could surprise me, but really being attached to McCain negates any possible appeal.

So that was kind of a wreckless analysis that definitely merits a rewrite, and wasn't really all that cogent after all.