GOP: It just keeps getting better and better

Happy Tuesday. I spent yesterday chasing runners around New Haven for the New Haven Independent.  It was tiring even watching them run. I did meet some really nice people. It's really good to meet so many good people on a great occasion. Kudos to all involved in the program.

Now, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Of course, I mean the GOP and its thrashing around to figure out what to do after its presidential candidate took, as the wag put it, less time to hire a running mate than it takes to hire a Target assistant manager. And probably less investigation, as well.

And now, the GOP has relegated the sitting president, a member of their party, to a cameo appearance (but who can blame them?) And now, who is the star of the show?

Why, it's Joseph I. Lieberman, who just may end up being the vice presidential candidate after all. We know Sen. John McCain, the presumptive presidential candidate, wanted him on the ticket, but ended up kowtowing to his advisers and picking somebody whom the lunatic right would love, and a woman to boot (no pun intended, but it works).

So, we have Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, who's had to hire a lawyer to defend herself against charges that she used her office to get her former brother-in-law fired off the state police. She's also tied into Sen. Ted Stephens. 

The GOP figured she would attract supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. Democrats ticked off 18 million people when she didn't get picked as Sen. Barack Obama's running mate. As James Carville, the Democratic pol, says, she wouldn't attract 18 of those people, never mind 18 million. Put my wife in that group. She is so ticked off at McCain...

And now, it just gets better. We find out that the daughter of a woman who is dead set against sex education ends up proving just how ill-advised her mother's policies are. And who's the baby's father: a guy who describes himself as a "f....'in redneck." I don't think the folks over at Harvard have to worry about leaving a place for this guy in next year's freshman class.

Tonight, Lieberman is the star of the show at the GOP convention. So, will McCain pull an Eagleton on his supporters and get Palin to pull out? (Tom Eagleton of Missouri was George McGovern's choice for vice president in 1972 until it became known that Eagleton had had shock treatments for a mental issue. )That would really be stupid.

Which means, don't count it out. Lieberman may become the first person to run for vice president on both modern major party tickets.

You think it's too strange. You may be right. But, stay tuned. As Shakespeare said, the past is prologue.