Categorical Aperitif

Of all the sad talking points offered to justify McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as running mate, the saddest has to be the one proferred by profundities like Cindy McCain and Steve Doocy: Palin has foreign policy experience because her state is closest to Russia. Oh, and Michael Barone adds a nice twist:

Foreign policy experience? Well, Alaska is the only state with a border with Russia. And it is the only state with territory, in the Aleutian Islands, occupied by the enemy in World War II.

Yeah, you can see how the Japanese occupation of a few storm-tossed islands hundreds of miles from even the Alaskan mainland for about a year starting in mid-1942 makes Sarah Palin (b. 1964) practically a grizzled veteran.

(Six degrees moment: My dad served in the Aleutians, at the air base that was miraculously carved out on Adak Island. Among his memorabilia are pictures of the place, which looks even more rocky, barren, and windswept in black and white. One I remember in particular: a shot of a bunch of tents, with an inscription on the back noting that, shortly after the picture was taken, an out-of-control B-25 skidded off the runway and plowed through the tents, killing one of my dad's comrades—a kid barely out of his teens. Such was life for "The Greatest Generation." I wonder whether my dad ever crossed paths with the young Charlton Heston, who apparently served on B-25s in the Aleutians. Anyway.)

I would just like to point out that, by the McCain-Doocy-Barone criterion, the El Pasoans who made Manos: The Hands of Fate have at least as much foreign policy cred as Sarah Palin.

For that matter, why not Vice President Torgo?

He's at least slightly less monstrous and repellent than Dick Cheney, and he's already learned at the feet of The Master. The campaign ads practically write themselves.

Torgo: He'll take care of the place if The Master goes away.

G'wan, tell me he wouldn't look right at home talking to Sean Hannity.