Sarah Palin is a joke of a pick.  Of course, everyone knows about the corruption scandal - she is alleged to have fired Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner because he refused to fire a soon to be ex-brother-in-law.  (Sources: LA Times; Anchorage's CBS-KTVA.)  Not only that, the investigation was begun by a bipartisan panel in Juneau, not exactly small potatoes - this issue clearly has legs, and if McCain later has to remove her from the ticket for this reason, he may as well retire to Sedona that day.

Secondly, she's already on record as having mocked the Vice Presidential office, saying: "As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I'm used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we're trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question." (Source: Politico, who is citing to Ludlow & Co., meaning that there's video of this moment ripe for a great television spot.)

Finally, before becoming Governor of Alaska, a state that has no serious budgetary concerns due to the Alaska Permanent Fund, she was mayor of Wasilla, AK, a village in rural Alaska which I'm sure is lovely, and I'm sure all of their 6,715 people will be happy to speak well of her.

So after all that?  My feeling is that McCain just painted a bull's eye on his campaign's derriere and handed the Obama campaign a slingshot.  For that, I'd like to thank him.