John McCain picks Stepford wife Sarah Palin as VP. (But did he know the abstinence preacher's teenage daughter got pregnant out of wedlock?)

I am hyper organized and very driven, yet there are days I feel like I can barely manage being a full-time mom to one kid, a dutiful wife, taking care of our house and cats, and running my own small business. And here is this woman, Sarah Palin, the recently (in 2006) elected governor of Alaska agreeing to take on the role of VP....

There she is, standing beside presumptive GOP presidential nominee John S. McCain, Sarah Palin, a "devoted" and "devout" mother of five (including a baby born with Down Syndrome in April) and self-described "hockey mom," impeccably dressed, coiffed, manicured, and made up -- a fortysomething babe -- (while I sit here at my computer, makeup-less, with chipped nail polish, in a long-sleeved t-shirt and clam diggers) calling all the attention to and lavishing praise on her very hunky husband, Todd, the man she most admires (her words), her beautiful girls standing behind her, her eldest son awaiting troop deployment to Iraq, gazing adoringly at her hero, John McCain, in between sentences...

Republicans, does it get any better than this?

(I bet Bill Clinton would have loved to have had a feisty babe like Palin serve under him -- or on top; and you can bet McCain doesn't object to all that hugging.)

I had a feeling that McCain would pick a woman, though I thought it would be Kay Bailey Huthison or Elizabeth Dole -- though back on June 27 one astute reader of this blog, "Ted," wrote: "Now that we’re beyond Hillary, we can look forward to the first female VP, Sarah Palin, to become the first female President of the United States in 4 years!" So tip o' my hat to you, Ted. You were right!

To her credit, Governor Palin of Alaska said ALL the right things in her speech today at the Nutter Center. (Nutter Center?! David Letterman and Jon Stewart are going to have a field day with that one.) She was well spoken, gracious, and seemed to reach out across the proverbial aisle to "all those who love this country" (including the one lone black guy in the Dayton crowd, and his daughter, who were strategically placed right behind McCain and Palin).

While I am all for seemingly intelligent, sassy, petite brunettes (finally someone shorter than McCain!) getting into higher office, as someone who was against going to war in Iraq when the enemy was nowhere near there, who wants this country to get out of Iraq and get off of oil (all oil) ASAP (Palin is all about drilling wherever), and who has seen "devoutness" to one religion or another used as an excuse to kill and mistreat people who are not like them, this GOP ticket has me very nervous.

To paraphrase another petite, sassy, ambitious brunette, Fasten your seat belts, presidential watchers. It's going to be a bumpy 67 days.

(Note: Just after posting this, I discovered a great little post on the Dallas Morning News blog entitled "Five reasons why Sarah Palin is a laugh-out-loud choice for VP," which is well worth a click and a read, as well as Timothy Egan's very good (and short) piece on "Ms. Alaska" in this afternoon's NYtimes.com.)

SPECIAL LABOR DAY EVANGELICAL FAMILY VALUES UPDATE: This just in: Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of "abstinence only" devout Evangelical Christian GOP VP pick Sarah Palin, is FIVE MONTHS PREGNANT! Per a 12:25 p.m. New York Times's "The Caucus" blog post, Bristol "plans" on marrying the father. Plans?! You betcha -- as soon as the McCain camp found out. (Hey, maybe they should have picked Lynne Spears, Jamie Lynn's mom, for VP instead of Palin.) According to The Caucus report, the McCain camp new about Bristol's delicate condition -- yet (increasingly mystifyingly) picked her mom, Sarah, who practically abandoned her baby born with Down Syndrome just three days after giving birth in April to get back to work, anyway. Assuming that's true (and I'm not sold that it is), that's gotta make you seriously question McCain's judgment (if you haven't already).

Those are some family values the Republicans/Evangelicals got. Do as we say, not as we do. (How do you feel about "abstinence only" sex education now, Governor Palin? And lest anyone has forgotten, McCain cheated on his first wife, with Cindy Lou, whom he later married.) All I can say is the McCain camp should be grateful another whirlwind -- Gustav -- is taking up the majority of air time today, greatly shortening the Republican National Convention and leaving them another day to put a positive spin on the Labor Day bombshell.

THE DAY AFTER UPDATE: Just read Elisabeth Bumiller's article from September 1's New York Times article, entitled "Disclosures on Palin Raise Questions on Vetting Process," to hear the latest Palin bombshells.

Btw, I don't care that Bristol Palin is pregnant out of wedlock or that Sarah Palin had her first son, Track, eight months after eloping. I actually feel sorry for Bristol, who, because of her mom's rising political career had/has no choice re this child. What I do care about is that if elected, this woman, Sarah Palin, is going to do her best to make abstinence-only education the only kind of sex education available to our children, a policy that she couldn't even get her flesh and blood to follow and that will have enormous negative and perhaps tragic repercussions.