John McCain used to joke that the job of a Vice President was to “inquire daily as to the health of the president.” How ironic, then, that he would pick a running mate that, for a mixture of inexplicable and apparent reasons, would steal his thunder.

When I watch the punditocracy critique the performance of politicians, I sometimes wonder if I am living in an alternate universe – a Larry David type of nightmare where I seem to see and hear things that other people breeze over or ignore.

The thing is, unlike the School of Socrates permeating the cable news networks who gave tepid praise for McCain, I flat out loved his acceptance speech at the GOP convention. I loved it more than Sarah Palin’s debutante address, which, in true form among the so-called experts, received higher marks than it deserved. And I have waited impatiently for eight years to hear McCain give this speech. It was without pretense, eloquent, and, yes, occasionally awkward. But it was the most authentic and sincerely delivered piece of rhetoric I have heard since my childhood glimpses of Ronald Reagan. It was pure McCain – passionate, chastising, humble and fiery. He reached inside the audience and grabbed our self-pity by the shirt collar and said “Wake up. You’re an American. That’s not just an adjective. That’s a responsibility.”

Conversely, I was adequately impressed by Sarah Palin the night before. I accept that I am in the minority on this. Palin was articulate, had a few tricks of delivery and a helpful hint of arrogance that seemed appropriate for her in the moment since she had been ruthlessly hammered by the media. But she’s got some work to do. I don’t doubt her strength, intelligence and ability to rise to a challenge. I respect the notion that McCain chose her because of her independent streak and his desire to deviate from the predictable. But since I doubt I am in polite company at the moment I will also put forth the infrequently uttered truth. He offered her to the GOP base as a kind of bribe or, to be more politically correct, a peace offering. You get Sarah, and I get to be myself once again.

It’s working brilliantly. But John McCain did not need to bribe me. I am voting for him, not Sarah Palin, with McCain as the extraneous side dish made more palatable by her presence. I would have voted for him regardless of who he chose for the number two spot. And I was always with him, from his first campaign in 2000 to the dark days in August 2007 when he was flirting with “has-been” status. I am not vulnerable to the cult of celebrity, nor the tedious game of gender and identity politics.

Yes I am pleased to see a woman on the ticket, but I grew up fully expecting it would happen in my lifetime anyway, so okay, great. Yet, I find it rather distasteful, to be honest, that the tabloids are turning Governor Palin into a Britney Spears of the campaign. In doing so, they fuel her “media-victim” celebrity among the Republican base. There is a looming but preventable irony here. McCain caught heat for a commercial that charged Obama with the sin of celebrity. Let not the Republicans be guilty of that same sin and give the Obama campaign a reason to deliver a similar jab.

I worry that this fascination with Palin obscures the overriding choice we have to make and eclipses the character and passion of the man who offered her the job in the first place. McCain is the one who will be making the key decisions in his administration. Palin may have the tie-breaking vote in the Senate and a bully pulpit elsewhere, but as president, McCain can send troops into combat, declare states of emergency, sign treaties, appoint Supreme Court Justices and veto legislation.

This campaign is truly historic but not because of race or gender. It’s because we really do have a clear choice this time around – a choice between two extraordinary and very different men. It’s not the choice between two leveraged, cobbled-together-for-political-purposes presidential tickets. Sarah Palin and Joe Biden may be a heartbeat away, but I am confident that both Obama and McCain aren’t disappearing anytime soon. Either of these number twos may very well be inquiring as to the health of their boss for a long time to come.

This is a fundamental change, and it has already happened. There is no turning back on this one. And frankly, I've been waiting all my life for it. Obama's candidacy is merely the final touch on a social change which has at last been realized. As a Jamaican-born, polyglot, multiracial American with a Czech mother, mulatto grandfather, and a hindu nephew and niece who speak spanish at home, I am looking forward to voting for a half-Kenyan from Hawaii who speaks fluent Indonesian.

Alyssa Milano, actress, pinup, and baseball devotee extraordinaire, finally got around to posting on her MLB blog again. While I began to grow restless with her editoral ramping towards an Obama endorsement (which she gives), I love that she opened with a Yogi Berra malapropism.

At least there are some things in this world that we can still count on. Baseball, despite the scandals, is one of them. And on that note, Congress wants the Justice Department to investigate whether Roger Clemens purjored himself before a House Committee.

Okay, what that means is this. Congress wants a third party to confirm whether or not a baseball player was lying to them. Cuz...they can't figure it out for themselves.

Your tax dollars at work.

How's this? Clemens gets two choices. He gives up his salary for each of the "steroid" years in question to charities that promote baseball among disadvantaged youth (and, while we're at it, schools in economically depressed areas where sports programs are under or un-funded). He doesn't get the Hall of Fame but he gets his good name back, redemption and a chance to sit beside Joe Buck and Tim McCarver and call the World Series games.

Or he can just go away, period.

After watching the post-debate analysis last night, I am convinced this country is simply not ready for a female president. You can put Hannity, Olberman, Matthews, Buchanan and the rest of the blowhards in a martini glass and bruise them for all I care. They'd still make a weak cocktail.

The thought that we'd recoil at the idea of a woman in the White House is astonishing to consider, since we are told women have nearly reached the zenith of their power and influence. Little girls are outnumbering boys in college classrooms. Women run Fortune 500 companies and have babies at 50. They copulate, purchase, own, drink, and work out as robustly as men.

Then what the hell happened with Hillary Clinton? Campaign mistakes aside, the media had a large hand in her demise. Republicans who obviously did not know what they were getting into by cultivating the Obama candidacy with their embarrassing gush over his rhetorical style sought to slay her too soon. And what I see as a woman who is essentially "on to" the guy trying to get one over on her, (I mean, come one, if she doesn't know how to see through a man, who does?) the rest of the electorate sees as a frustrated post-menopausal shrew who thinks she is entitled to the presidency.

Hillary does a sardonic riff on the cult of Obama and it's considered a meltdown. She tries tell a joke or wing a zinger and it's considered "desperation." (Why is it that women are always desperate and men are always "scrappy?" Oh, and we could really use some zingers in this campaign. It's been so PC that I am starting to fall asleep. Where's Lloyd Bentsen when you need him??) I have watched every pundit from left to right excoriate her. And no one is going to tell me that in some subconscious way it isn't because she is a woman. She's a woman who did, in fact, stand by husband while he humiliated himself and the nation knowing full well that anything short of a show of unity between herself and the president would further compromise the presidency itself. And, yes, it would also compromise her own ambitions. But we see now in what appears to be one of the most tragic stories in politics that Hillary did not get justice for standing with Bill. Let this be a cautionary tale to all women. You do not get rewarded for tolerating your husband's transgressions and infidelities. Victims stay victims. More on that later.

In Latin America, female heads of state are not anomalies. Female heads of state whose husbands used to hold the same job are not anomalies either. Funny, since Latin culture is so based in the power of the masculine, the macho, even the misogynist. How can it be that Chile has a female leader? Argentina too.

And then there's Germany, ladies. Angela Merkel is a ballsy woman in a pantsuit.

In a general election aganist McCain I would not have voted for Hillary simply because, ideologically, I am not with her. She is a classic liberal - expand government, raise taxes, layer legislation upon regulation like coats of paint on an old staircase. But if she had run against another GOP candidate, like...say, Huckabee or Giuiliani, I would have given her my vote on history-making grounds. Personally I think this country needs a woman there, not because women don't start wars (they can), but because somewhere over the last 20 years, women ran from the academic definition of feminism (undertandable) and adopted some kind of consumerist idea of "liberation." (bad idea)

I rooted for Hillary this primary season because I thought that McCain would have an easier time against her (and they'd likely have very civil and informative debates that would be slightly less eclipsed by the cloud of identity politics) and if, by chance, she did win in the general, I could live with it for four years.

It appears that not many people have that same kind of pragmatism. Nor do many women realize the powerful symbolism of electing a woman to the highest office in the world. It looks like women will be passed over again for something "bigger" than us once again.

David Brooks opines in the Times today about John McCain's record with lobbyists. It is more fact than opinion and Brooks lays out the case for McCain, while those on the other side of the table wish to languish in the minutuia of airplane rides, letters and brushes with bottle blondes. Michael Kinsley writes a Dr. Seussian send-up of the almost-scandal while trying to keep the questions about McCain's integrity going. They also run that picture with the woman in question wearing that horrible gown....I half expect her to come crawling out of a coffin and skulking around Carfax Abbey in search of little Christian infants to drain.

I am nonplussed by the whole thing. Vicki Iseman seems like a smart enough girl who did what she needed to get, ahem, a-head. And when she was able to actually ...stand before the chairman of the commerce committee, she realized she'd done alright for herself. Now if she had been able to keep her mouth shut and stop bragging, none of this would have happened. If you're truly cool, you never brag about knowing the guy at the door. He just lets you in, and your friends are none the wiser. And if, for some reason, he doesn't, then you don't look like a fool.

Mr. Weaver might have used that analogy when he told her to take a hike. And on that note, where is she?

On to more important things.

After abandoning this diversion for over 3 years, I was pushed to re-open it today with help of a quote from Gerard Baker of the Times of London.

"...most Americans can distinguish between the transience of policy failure and the permanence of the national ideal."

Just like most baseball fans can distinguish between a guy who will do anything to get into the Hall of Fame and the other guy who just wakes up every day to play the game he loves.