AFTER A BILLION ATTACK ADS COMPARING OBAMA TO PARIS AND BRITNEY ...

McCain picks a formy beauty pageant contestant who won Miss Congeniality?

Anyone else see a bit of a disconnect there?

(I think it's really, really going to be hard for a lot of Americans to reconcile "beauty pageant contestant" and "heartbeat away from the presidency." I think that's true even in the heartland. And it's not sexist to say that -- hell, thirty-five years ago beauty pageants were regarded as sexist by anyone who claimed to be a feminist, and a lot of people still feel that way. Entering a beauty pageant does not equal being a woman, and no rational person swallows the nonsense that beauty pageants are all about well-roundedness and leadership skills.)