Can’t focus at work.  Constantly checking the web for the latest updates even though there won’t be any real news for another few hours.

As usual, I’m cautiously optimistic.  This year, I’m a bit less cautious.

I recently went to the doctor.  He gave me two x-rays and a shot.  I paid a $20 copay to the receptionist and went along my merry way.  This is life on a decent employer-based health care plan: My wife’s.

Prior to getting married two months ago, I had what I refer to as “crap insurance.”  It was an individual health care plan that I paid for out of my own pocket.  My monthly bill was high.  The deductible was high.  My choice of doctors was limited.  Rather than paying a set copay when receiving medical care, I would get bills in the mail which sometimes made sense and sometimes did not.  Misunderstandings/disagreements with the insurance company over what was covered and what was not happened multiple times.  Here’s the best part: only generic drugs were covered.  “Hey, what are the odds I’ll ever need a non-generic drug?” I thought when I decided to save 50 bucks on my monthly bill.  Do you want to take a guess?  This is life on a crap insurance policy.  And to be fair, this is the life of a relatively healthy youngish person on a crap insurance policy.

I’ve been on a number of these plans from different carriers throughout my time as an inconsistently employed artistic type.  They are all for the birds.  And guess what?  With John McCain, this is the direction health care will be headed in.

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Okay, Joe, practice the line, just like this:

“With all due respect, Governor, your answer is gibberish.”

Yes, of course, you shouldn’t condescend.  Of course, you shouldn’t call her “Sarah” or “Sweetie” or act frustrated with her.  Of course you should be polite and wear a broad smile for the duration of the debate.

But please don’t be too nice.  Please don’t pull any punches.  Lord knows, she won’t.  Sarah Palin will be in attack mode, and you can’t just be playing defense.  Attack.  Attack.  Attack — gently, and with a smile — but attack, please.  Don’t be hamstrung by all this caution that your handlers are preaching. 

And, for crying out loud, when she is inarticulate, call her on it.  Draw attention to it.  Will you be criticized for this afterwards?  Yes, but that will happen anyway.  By calling out Palin’s verbal gibberish, you will force her words to be re-examined and replayed.  And that’s as it should be.

PREDICTION: Joe Biden will be mostly gaffe-free, Palin, more articulate than expected, but still shaky.  All of her ills will be blamed on moderator Gwen Ifill’s ”biased” questioning. 

CONSPIRACY THEORY: McCain’s campaign knew about Ifill’s Obama book before she was announced as moderator, but chose not to say anything about it at the time.  Why?  They knew she would be an even-handed questioner, but a late hour revelation of the book would allow them to use her as a scapegoat, pegged with their new favorite expression: “in the tank for Obama.” 

My original title for this post was “Sarah Palin is Geraldine Ferraro but Worse,” but in the end, I decided to go with the Dick Cheney comparison in the name of symmetry (click to read my “Joe Biden is Dick Cheney but in a Good Way” post).  Either comparison is equally valid.

Walter Mondale’s pick of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 was applauded by women but viewed with skepticism by many Republicans.  Ferraro was not the most experienced potential vice president, having served only three terms in the House of Representatives. Was this a gender-based affirmative action pick?  Was it stunt casting?  If the motives behind Mondale’s choice of Ferraro were at worst questionable, the motives behind McCain’s choice of Palin are at best transparently calculating and monstrously hypocritical.

Sarah Palin was not picked because John McCain thought she would make the best vice president.  Fact.  She was picked because he thought she could help him win the election, because John McCain cynically believed that Palin could get both the religious right and disaffected female Hillary supporters onto the big red bus.  She was picked because she had extreme right wing views, folksy charm, and a vagina.  That’s it. That’s the reason–and if you think otherwise, you are clearly drinking the Kool Aid.

The reasons behind McCain’s choice of Palin are so transparent as to be insulting.  Particularly, when one considers the first couple months of McCain’s campaign, during which time, all we heard from the senator was how critical it was to elect someone with experience to the Oval Office.  Experience!  Experience!  Experience!  And then he chooses an obscure governor with less than two years experience who has only traveled outside the continent one time as his pick to be the next potential leader of the free world?  Is your intelligence being insulted here, voter?  Does this bother you?  AND … have we started to notice a theme here with McCain’s hypocrisy?  One needn’t go back to 2000 to play the “let’s listen to old John McCain debate new John McCain” game.  One need only go back a month!

Which leads us to a new theme, one that should be the Democrats’ rallying cry for the next 50 days: “John McCain will say and do absolutely anything to get elected.”  His principles have left the building.  The dirty campaign ads, the flip flops on energy, on the Bush tax cuts, on …

But now I’ve gotten off track.  I was talking about Sarah Palin.  Oh, yes.  And how she is like Ferraro.  But much worse.  And Dick Cheney.  But much worse.

“Much worse than Dick Cheney?” you say, “Dick Cheney, evil overlord of the Bush presidency?  Surely, you must be joking. How can anyone be worse than Dick Cheney?”  Let’s look at what she believes.  Is she all that different from Dick Cheney?  Are her views any more moderate?   Would she be the slightest bit less trigger-happy as commander in chief than he?  Does she express any more enthusiasm toward the idea of diplomacy?  Is she at all less likely to be accused of cronyism?  Surely, his social views are more in the mainstream than hers.  When you look at the issues, Sarah Palin is every bit as extreme as Dick Cheney, but with less experience to back up those convictions on almost every count.

And here’s how she’s worse: she’s likable.  Dick Cheney’s bad judgement and underhandedness may be colossal, but I’ll say this for him: at least he looks the part.  His exterior is a caricature of his interior.  This makes him, on some level, less dangerous. As the movies teach us, the most frightening characters are not those with fangs and a cape; they’re easy to avoid.  No, the scariest ones are those who look and talk just like us, those with appealing exteriors, those who know how to charm us, even as they trick us into privatizing social security and fighting made-up wars.

In fact, maybe I’ve made a mistake in my Sarah Palin comparisons.  I’ve over-looked the most obvious and frightening of them all.  Now who was that inexperienced governor they called a reformer?  You know, the one who held grudges and tried to make us believe his lies even after they were proved false …

I think I’ve blocked the name.