Any woman will do

I'm not sure if he was trying to piss off Hillary Clinton, but I'm sure she must be spitting mad right now.

After spending the last two years trying to break the "last glass ceiling" for women, John McCain selected a relatively unkown governor from Alaska to be his vice presidential nominee. John McCain's selection effectively ends any pathway for Hillary to run as the first potential woman for president in 2012. That's gotta smart.

What's probably even more insulting to Clinton is that Palin was mayor of a city of 9,000 people and, for two years, governor of a state with the same population as the city of Austin.

After bashing Barack Obama for not having experience, John McCain chose someone who has never held a national office, never had to think about national security or the country's fiscal issues in a serious way. She has never had to withstand the rigors of a national election or have her every word scrutinized by the entire nation.

Just for a bit of perspective, when George W. Bush was elected president of the United States, Gov. Palin was running a city with fewer people than the number who saw John McCain introduce her as his running mate. Sen. Obama had eight times as many people present for his acceptance speech as she did constituents. This is the executive experience she will tout.

Why would John McCain pick such a person to succeed him if, God forbid, something should happen to him? The answer seems pretty obvious to most — because she is a woman. McCain must have calculated that there are still a fair number of unhappy residents of Hillaryland. If He can pick off even a few percentage points of them, he can make a pretty good run at the presidency.

Nobody quite knows if that gamble will pay off, but I've heard many women who felt that pick was insulting to women. In her recent Vanity Fair article, Dee Dee Myers, former press secretary for President Clinton, said "too often women are promoted for the wrong reasons, and then blamed when things don’t go right."

I can understand their frustration. After Justice Thurgood Marshall retired from the bench, President George H.W. Bush reached past a slew of qualified judges of all colors and persuasions and nominated Clarence Thomas. At the time, Thomas had a meager record that could charitably characterized as mediocre. Since being on the bench, Justice Thomas has carved out a record as an incurious justice who blindly follows the right wing agenda. And he is there just because he is Black. The 'any Black person will do' selection annoyed me as it did many people of color.

I've never been a fan of Hillary, but I can imagine this 'any woman will do' selection must annoy her. I feel her pain.