Sarah Who?

All over America today, from Presque Isle, Maine to Elko, Nevada, from Cozad, Nebraska to Raton, New Mexico you could hear the sound of small town mayors and city managers weighing their vice-presidential and even presidential prospects. Yes, those chief executives who deploy the snow plows and sanders, command legions of sewer workers, hire and fire park and rec directors, and preside over pancake breakfasts at the old Grange now know they are just 18 months of experience running a state of 650,000 people from being serious presidential timber. At least according to John McCain.

Each of our would-be Commanders in Chief just made their first crucial national security decision. Barack Obama concluded that should he be unable to serve, or were to die in office, he would put the country and the US military in the hands of a six-term Senator and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a man widely respected on both sides of the aisle. McCain, who is after all 72 and a four time cancer survivor which makes his choice more than academic, chose a person who before her year and a half as governor of the tiny state of Alaska (pop. 650,000) was mayor of a town of 6,000 people.

In his acceptance speech in Denver last night, Obama said if John McCain wants to debate who has the judgment and temperament to be Commander in Chief he would welcome that debate. Incredibly, he won it and he didn't even have to fire a shot. He just let John McCain shoot himself in the foot. Goodness, even Dick Cheney has better aim than that.