energizing the base, indeed

It is truly entertaining to watch right-wing men fall all over themselves in their fawning and pie-eyed mooning for Miss Half-baked Alaska, Para Sailin.

There has been a lot already written about Rich Lowry's "she winked at me" paean to her, and even Pat Buchanan seems to have felt a distantly-remembered puffiness in his nethers after her performance (literally) in the vice-presidential debate. His schoolboy excitement conjures up images of Pat, nattily attired in his finest thick tweed sport coat, a crooked bow tie, gardenia in his lapel, and slightly run-down saddle shoes, reeking of Vitalis and Old Spice, and holding a lovely beau-kay of posies awkwardly out to her from the shade of her front porch as tiny beads of flop sweat break out on his brow.

From his yearning soliloquy to her on Hardball today, it's easy to imagine Pat's dessicated endocrine system coughing a couple of leftover flakes of dried testosterone into his blood once more for old times' sake as he pledges his eternal boyish love to her forever and ever.

Even John McCain has to be making Cindy face the nervous uncertainty that all trophy wives feel and realizing how many glowing photo ops could result from the spectacle of the recently-divorced President and Vice-President celebrating their run for a second term together as they get married to each other in the White House Rose Garden on a lovely June afternoon.

All indications are that the right-wing male fascination for Eskimo Barbie appears to be located primarily in their loins.

Sarah Pailin is really moving the polls after all.



Or at least, giving them a puffy.