Palin's Perfect Storm

Reviewing a new book about Sarah Palin, Herbert Calhoun (a former senior State Department official) doesn't mince words about the half-term governor from Alaska: "She may be the first who has put together 'a perfect storm' of all of the most dangerous qualities of a demagogue in a single package: she is mean-spirited, inept, vindictive, and lazy, but can play all the emotional chords in the correct keys of the lower octaves of America's divisive undercurrents." And we have Sen. John McCain to thank for this plague on the nation. Let that be his epitaph. It's another astounding example (a frightening one in this case) of how a single person can affect history. Think about how vastly different our political landscape would be today if McCain had tapped someone else as his 2008 running mate, and the Wasilla Wonder remained "Sarah who?"