A reader writes:

The shocker is not that Palin was chosen, or that she turns on Rich Lowry. (Let's face it: Palin is incredibly attractive, she uses her sex appeal to make straight men wither, women have been using that strategy since Cleopatra, and men will continue to cave in to such tactics until at least the next Ice Age.) The real shocker is that conservative Republicans -- after 8 years of George Bush -- are *again* willing to put all their hopes into a charismatic, folksy leader who is ideologically rigid and intellectually stupid. With her complete inability to express herself on complex issues, and her willingness to mask that with folksy charm and talking points, Palin is a carbon-copy of W.

Wouldn't you think that conservatives would be more wary of her after seeing the destruction that George Bush has wrought? The fact that they splash Palin's picture on the cover of the National Review with the words "The One," while knowing full well she lacks any intellectual fortitude and will therefore require a shadow presidency (is Todd Palin the next Dick Cheney?), tells me it will take a deeper collapse of America's foundations for conservatives to realize that this strategy is, has been, and always will be, fundamentally flawed.

Palin is the aroma that rises from the corpse of American conservatism. And they find it invigorating.

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