Further, when your life experience has taught you that you can charm/BS/joe sixpack your way through each challenge, why not see this as another chance to up your game? Not moral monstrosity, just fairly typical humanity.

For all the Palin-defenders out there, remember particularly Tyler and A. Johnson.

You know, I might have taken this argument seriously in January, 2001. But coming from anyone who has lived in the United States of America for the past eight years, I would consider this statement to be evidence that the speaker has received an amateur lobotomy.

She could have gone to town on Kelo v. New London (although that may blunt her ardent “federalist” position). She could have criticized Engel v. Vitale or, even if she didn’t know the case names, said something like “I think, in several cases, the Court has been far too aggressive in preventing students from acknowledging their spiritual beliefs in school.”

That was not a gotcha question. That was a juicy fat pitch waiting to be clobbered out of the park. Or perhaps we should say an “empty netter” for Palin.

She blew it. Not just because the “elites” mock her for her utter ignorance and lack of curiosity. But because she couldn’t satisfy even the people who support her. I suppose there are still several people who will back her so long as she’s not busted running a meth lab back in Wasilla. But now there are even “base” supporters who are shaking their head in disbelief.

One last point: imagine if those qualified surgeons made it clear to you that, should the patient die on the table, there would be no shortage of scapegoats, and that you might even come out of this looking like an even more appropriate candidate to be in the operating room the next go-round. Stupid or dishonest or extremely cynical?

If president, Palin will have to make the same kinds of calls that Clinton did while the ATF and FBI besieged the Branch Davidians, or that Bush did when he appointed Michael Brown as head of FEMA. The only way that she won’t have to make those kinds of calls is if she is reduced to some sort of ceremonial role like the Emperor of Japan, and someone else will make those calls instead. If that’s what you’re pinning your hopes on, why not support that someone else for VP?

I would say that the worst possible consequence (a fairly likely one) is a single fatality.

Do you really think that our system of checks and balances means that an individual making low quality decisions as president or vice president of the United States never has consequences more severe — and, indeed, always less severe — than a single fatality?