Risky move picking Palin, but McCain needed to create some buzz and, given Obama's troubles with the Hillary camp, this certainly does that. Doesn't mean it will work, but it certainly isn't the yawner that Mitt Romney would have been--the pick nobody would have been surprised by.

Joe Lieberman would have been a better pick in that it would also have been surprising while being bipartisan. And it would have put the emphasis on McCain in that he would not have been seen as trying to groom someone for a future run.

Wow, yo certainly are out of touch with the Repuyblican party, such as it is. Lieberman has a pro-choice history that's poison to the evangelicals. He and McCain basically agree on one issue, and that's the stupid Iraq war that's sinking both their careers. Maybe it would have been poetically appropriate for them to have gone down in tandem, but politics ain't poetry.

So instead he goes for a joke candidate, whose only public service experience, as of two years ago was a brief term as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. As far as anyone knows, she has no opinions or ideas about any of the issues that will feature in this political season. She believes, though, in the literal truth of Genesis -- yup, she's a hardcore Creationist. And she's totally pro-life, and was once a runner-up for Miss Alaska. That's her resume.

This is like a hollywood script, one of those anybody-can-be-president feel good stories, except that stuff doesn't work in real life. In real life some guy named Dave can't fix the federal budget just by being an all right guy with common sense and a pocket calculator. In real life this poor woman is now in so far over her head that it will only highlight the fact that the guy who picked her is ultimately no better qualified than she is.

Anyway, as for the experience of running an actual country, and taking responsiblity - Sarah has infinitely more experience than Obama. Do you seriously believe Obama is vetted to be the mayor of a small town, let alone the whole state (and forget about the whole country)?

"Do you seriously believe Obama is vetted to be the mayor of a small town..?"

Are you serious?

Imagine it's an interview. What would Obama say if he asked to give a single example from his life - when he was personally responsible for something concrete, material, and he came up successful. PR campaigns not-withstanding.

Don't be so intentionally dense. He has experience as a U.S. Senator and a state senator, he was president of the Harvard Law Review, he was a Professor of Constitutional Law, he was a community organizer- all of which, on there own, are substantial qualifications to be a mayor or more.

Don't be so intentionally dense. Try to think clearly... He has experience as a U.S. Senator and a state senator, He was a US senator for 2 years, and he devoted all the time to running his PR campaign. Nothing more. As a state senator, he had 2 tasks: 1.Get a good PR for himself 2. (connected with #1) bring more more state handouts to his constituents. In neither case, he was responsible for any concrete results. No one can turn back and say - look, Barry, you re-organized the transport system, now trains run on time, and thre are fewer traffic jams, and we pay less money to the government. Nope. Not his responsiblity. Political games, machinations, PR - these were his major tasks. and he was good at it. Fixing the bridges? Not on the agenda. he was president of the Harvard Law Review, Now you are reaching to decades from now. Okay. What were his responsiblities? he was a Professor of Constitutional Law, Okay, without a single article with his name on it. Hm. For years he would come to a room and bloviate about his personal thoughts on Constitution. You sure this in any way trained him to fix the roads? he was a community organizer Yes, he was working together with Rezko to steal the money. Ahm. But what exactly is this "community organizer" job? I mean, how do you judge if it is done well? Can I get the job description? What did he achieve? - all of which, on there own, are substantial qualifications to be a mayor or more. And yet, never-never in his life he was responsible for anything that remotely dealt with actually, you know, running things that allow citizens comfortable life. You know, police, rail roads, sanitation. Nothing. PR and bloviating and political machinations. All his life. Nothing more.

Read "Dreams from My Father"- he goes into detail about his time as a community organizer and the types of projects he was involved in that improved the lives of those on the Southside of Chicago.

Now, I do believe Obama is 100% truthful on describing his own achievements (and who is more believable than a politician, who is telling us how much he achieved in his life), but I need some independent verification. I mean, I am such an asshole - mainly because I am an engineer. I want some data.

He is a lot more believable than you are, and how do I know you're an actual engineer? What we DO know is that you are, indeed, an asshole.

You see, this is why liberals fail so often, they trust their emotions. This is also why most engineers are republican.

Not true. I've taught Engineers. The electrical engineers are generally apolitical (a lot of them are foreign nationals, and it's moot), but trend democratic. Take a look at registration figures for a community like Sunnyvale. The ones who trend republican are the mechanical engineers who do everything by formula. And then there are the chemists. Who cares how they vote -- they're like an alien species. You wouldn't by any chance be one of them, would you?