In his latest op-ed piece in the Times, David Brooks sides with serious conservatives in voicing serious concerns over McCain's seriously effed-up VP pick:

Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.

But while joining the chorus of those on the right questioning the wisdom of Republicans' VP pick he also has some words of wisdom for those on the left doing the same...

Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place.

Brooks may not have caught the smug condescension of the pick itself, which garnered the expected reaction, but his point — that the left's reaction to Palin, which I imagine McCain's people gleefully anticipated, could ultimately be more damaging to the left than to Palin, and would, in fact, rally the troops around her — is well taken.  What unifies those who support her is certainly not her qualifications, which even her most ardent fans acknowledge she hasn't got, but the perception of "smug condescension" of those who are ridiculing her for it. 

That is, at least, the reality-TV narrative the MSM has chosen nearly two weeks into this new chapter of the campaign.  The media loves its stereotypes, just like the rest of us.  When the plot comes prepackaged it's easier for everyone to digest it, that's for sure.  It makes it easy for op-edsters like The Globe's Jeff Jacoby to phone it in, too.

People are at least as drawn to the predictable Stations of The Cross as they are to the surprise endings, and as dynamic as we'd like to believe our democratic process is, it is at least as much, and as importantly, a mindless ritual, wherein we reconnect with our tribe, and reiterate who and what we like to think we are. 

When both parties are consumed with their own cults of personality, both camps hoping to play the press, pandering to the lazy presumptions of "the people", this cartoon version of democracy we've ended up with is the result. 

As for personalities, McCain's is not really suitable for a cult.  He was never the blank screen for Republicans Obama was for Democrats in the primary.  But Palin is sure proving to be.  In and of herself she's nothing much, but as a touché!, a poke in the eye and a vicious parody of Democrats, she's been fairly effective so far.  No one really knows who Palin is, but everyone knows, somehow, what Palin means. 

We are clearly still in the Queen-Bitch Karl Rove Era of American politics.  But it would be wrong to blame it all on little Turd Blossom.  It's a pathology that both parties are playing out: the codependent embrace, where one party's bullying abuse is answered by the other's long-suffering, supercilious sense of superiority. 

We thought we were ready to break up and move on when that handsome newcomer appeared, with his easy smile and sweet-talk.  But rebound relationships never really last, do they?  We think we know what we want, but sometimes we find ourselves secretly sort of missing the way the bully made us feel all riled up and self-righteous inside.  All those brilliant zingers we would come up with in answer to his brute intimidation.  And, well, the revenge sex was kinda hot, actually. 

What if everything was really going to be all right?  What if bipartisanship was for real?  What if "change" actually meant we had to change, not just that they had to?  What if we didn't have bullies to bully?  Who would we be then? 

If there's one thing the GOP understands, it's that good enemies are at least as valuable as good friends, and more fun when you can get under their skin.  I mean, what compares to the satisfaction of pushing the nuclear button on a self-professed pacifist?  What's more gratifying than watching a righteous agent of tolerance explode in slurs?  

That's the Rovean M.O., innit?  The social agenda of Rove-era Republicans is strategically unreasonable, cynically calculated to outrage the enemy by pushing their little buttons, leaving them sputtering in apoplexy.  I mean, do you really think that old leather queen Karl Rove cares if you abort your babies?  He eats five fresh fetuses with hollandaise sauce for breakfast EVERY MORNING, bitches.  His bloody Mary's made with REAL BLOOD.

Eight years of having their buttons pushed by Republicans and sputtering in impotent outrage at the idiocy of it all has apparently taught some Democrats almost nothing.  The scorn heaped on Bush for his incuriosity, mangled syntax, and class-clown persona has curdled.  And it was small consolation, anyway, considering the price.  What would happen if we didn't take the bait this time around?