REACT: McCain's pick for Veep shows he know something about change.

If the port side progressive pundits are sounding a bit “dizzy” these days, it is due to the exceptional amount of “spinning” they are doing to make it sound like all news vis-a-vis Barack Obama is good news. If John McCain’s continuing good standing in the polls have them stammering, trying to dis his choice of Sarah Palin for Vice President has them totally flummoxed.

Even before the stories were filed on Obama’s elaborately staged and well delivered superficial acceptance speech, McCain trumped the junior senator from Illinois with the history making announcement naming Alaska Governor Palin as his running mate – proving that Democrats are not the only ones who can make history. While the Obama folks expected the media and the public to savor the acceptance speech at least through the weekend, McCain held the exposure to less than 24 hours. By noon on Friday, the speech was old news. It was a brilliant tactical move.

Palin will also be a strong draw for those Hillary supporters, who feel that the ladies have been cheated by the slick talking black dude. This is a net gain. And, judging from the Vogue cover, a lot of Democrat guys maybe jumping ship. All things considered, Palin is the hottest vice president candidate in history.

In picking Palin, McCain made it impossible for the Democrats to chew up the Alaskan governor without eating their young. For the party that claims modern day feminism as one of their defining issues, it was interesting to see how they would maintain the integrity of their cause while vilifying the second female candidate for Vice President – and the first with a real chancing of holding the office.

It was sort of easy to predict their tactic. It is one they have used against African Americans who do not stick to the liberal, welfare-is-good party line. They simply declare them to be apostates. In the case of black conservatives, they are “uncle toms.” When the very African American Congressman Gary Franks (R-CN) was elected to Congress, the all liberal -- and hitherto Democrat -- Black Caucus” barred him from membership. He was not black enough for them. When the courts said the Caucus had to admit him since they were really a tax-free not-for-profit public corporation, they disbanded the group. In liberal America, blackness is an opinion, not an ethnic reality.

In the case of Palin, they are saying, “Women, yes, but not THAT GIRL. (I can hear the old Marlo Thomas television theme song playing in my ear). These kinds of reactions are always good reminders that the feminism movement that dominates the headlines and public discourse, is NOT about women. No. No. No. Modern day feminism is limited to the issues and personalities advanced by the liberal ladies of the Democrat party. Glass ceiling shattering is only allowed for those women with liberal credentials and agendas.

With Palin as the candidate, the vice presidential debate suddenly poses a problem for Joe Biden. Obama was figuring on have old Joe be a junkyard dog, sinking his teeth into the hind quarters of any one of the touted white male Republican contenders. As is often the case, the presence of a woman can turn the fiercest hound into a lap dog. If Biden gets too tough on the gentler sex, he will come across as a bully. He might as well go to the debate in a Marlon Brando “wife beater” undershirt. On the other hand, a woman “standing up” to a man wins a chorus of “atta girl”s.

The criticism I enjoy the most is Palin’s alleged “lack of experience.” Every time a leading Democrat cites her relative newness on the larger political stage, the name Barak Obama keeps popping into my head. McCain has laid a trap for the Democrats, and they are jumping into it with both feet.

Arguably, Obama does not have much more experience than she does – even less if you match executive experience against legislative experience. She presides over a major government. Obama has never managed anything larger than a small personal staff. Now if you have inexperience on the ticket, is it better to be lacking in the Vice President or the President. In a less than subtle move, McCain has shown that the Democrats got the experience requirement backward.

Perhaps the most desperate and idiotic criticism I heard came from David Bender, of (hot) Air America. He blasts Palin because, in his opinion, she does not look like a Vice President. (I am not making this up. Sexist, you say? Shallow, you say? Chauvinistic, you say?) As a woman, is she any more or less vice presidential than Geraldine Ferraro? Oh! I get it. Palin is not eastern seaboard. Not a limousine liberal … hell … not even a liberal. And the Dems wonder why they can’t shed their elitist image? This silly argument doesn’t backfire. It ricochets to Obama. He, himself, said that HE doesn’t look like those guys on the money. (Again, thinking about the Vogue cover ... mmmm .... oh yeah ... Bender is right. Palin most certainly does not look like any previous vice presidential candidate. She's more likely to get wolf whistles than cat calls).

The Obama team gets it. They’re not saying anything negative about Palin, even in the instant response advertising. But those self-appointed Obama’s spokespersons blabbering to the press are falling into McCain’s trap en masse – and Obama is tethered to them like the last mountain climber still on the ledge.