"The Worst Vice-Presidential Nominee in U.S. History"

Today's recommended reading: Robert Elisberg explains why Ms. Palin is "the worst Vice-Presidential nominee in U.S. history":

Vice presidents are usually selected as people who are adept at blasting the other side's presidential candidate, because it's only the presidential candidate that matters. Joe Biden has already done that - twice - at length, spoken as someone who knows John McCain well and likes him. Sarah Palin had her first chance...and whiffed. Didn't even try. And it's hard to imagine what she has in her arsenal that will remotely allow her to do so in the future....

Now add on all the problems expressed above. Sarah Palin's inexplicably laughable lack of substance, most-especially on the foreign policy stage. Her taking away the one issue, experience, Republicans were even attempting. Her pushing away voters who might otherwise be willing to vote for a senator with 26 years in the Senate. Her bringing Hillary Clinton aggressively back into the campaign. Her inability to offer anything to off-set Joe Biden. Her standing as supposedly the most-qualified Republican woman as John McCain's first decision.

Sarah Palin? Really? Mr. McCain, Can I Please Have Some of What You Are Smoking?

Turns out the Republican VP pick is Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska for the past 21 months.

Er... huh?

Reasons that Palin is a good pick:

1. She's a woman.
2. She's an interesting and unexpected pick.
   
3. She locks up Alaska for McCain: it was a stretch for Obama anyway, it's a small state, and it's typically ignored by Presidential campaigns.

Reasons that Palin is a completely stupid pick:

1. Hillary Clinton, a woman with great credibility on women's issues, beloved by millions of women across the country, will tear her a new one and can do so without accusations of sexism. In other words: she was clearly chosen in order to appeal to women. It's obvious pandering at best and idiocy at worst.
   
2. She is strongly pro-life anti-choice. Female swing voters are mostly pro-choice.
3. Alaska has 3 electoral votes.
4. She's the target of an ethics investigation demanded by the Republican legislature in a state where the Republican Party is in serious trouble due to widespread ethical problems.
5. She endorsed Barack Obama's energy plan.
6. She is a creationist, and the Republican Party is already taking heat for being anti-science.
   
7. Joe Biden wipes the floor with her in any comparison and will crush her in the VP debate.
   
8. She recently dissed the office of VP.
9. She might not have been thoroughly vetted.
   
10. Even without all of that, Palin is a completely stupid pick because she eliminates McCain's best argument against Obama, and one of the few effective ones: that he is too young and inexperienced to be President. Palin is younger and less experienced than Obama. Less than two years ago, what was her job? Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, population 6,715.
    

Frankly, I think that McCain had picked Mitt Romney, but then when the houses thing came up, since the Romneys are even more disgustingly rich than the McCains, he was forced to abandon that plan.