Bit of a Sticky Wicket, Huh?

Jeff Goldstein takes a shot of the identity politics schadenfreude the rest of us are already drunk-as-Lords on today:

See, this is why journos in the bag for Obama should await the royal talking points before opening their dullard yaps.

CNN’s John Roberts: Palin Too Young and Inexperienced:

During the 9 a.m. EDT hour of “CNN Newsroom,” “American Morning” co-anchor John Roberts gave an analysis of Governor Sarah Palin during discussion of Senator John McCain’s vice presidential choice. Roberts focused on Palin’s lack of experience, saying that a prerequisite for the vice presidency should be the ability to step right into the office, especially because of McCain’s age. Roberts stated [...] “she’s the youngest governor ever in Alaska’s history, and she’s the first woman. She’s only been in office for a couple of years now, which really raises the experience issue here.”

Leave aside for the moment the dissonance of pretending to worry about Palin’s “inexperience” should she be forced (by the death of a fossilized McCain) into the Presidency when you haven’t offered the same argument for a man with even less executive experience getting the job outright; that probably has to do with her being “the first woman” governor or something equally patriarchal.

But in making this argument — that a 72-year old candidate is almost certain to kick while in office — what you have further done is begun alienating aging boomers who will soon be McCain’s age, questioning their worth and viability, throwing into doubt their general competence.

—Which means Roberts has managed to 1) highlight the inexperience of the Dem candidate for president by going after the inexperience of the Republican candidate for vice president; 2) has managed to make an implied argument that the inexperience of a woman is somehow more dangerous than the inexperience of a man, or a man of (half) color; and 3) has managed to make an ageist argument that could, at some level, get aging Dem Boomers to believe that their party thinks of them as prop voters, necessary for victory, but after that, to be set afloat on an ice chunk and allowed to drift off serenely into the great political beyond.

Add to that the calculus that many Hillary supporters will be thinking, “that should have been Hillary!” and what we have here is a perfect storm of identity politics for the Dems to try to steer their shiny yacht through safely.

Yup. Come on, People: Energy crisis. Conservation comes first, right? Call off the election. It's just a silly exercise at this point.