Just now watching the night’s parade of Repo Men and Repo Women.

Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani: They’re not even trying to convince undecideds, or to promote policy platforms. They’re only repeating the same old brand slogans. Strength. Patriotism. Military fetishism. POW. 9/11. Country. Leadership. Drill, drill, drill. Abortion. The sanctity of (only one kind of) marriage. Anti-intellectualism. Everything wrong these past eight years was them durn libruls’ fault. Daring to be racist. Daring to suck up to the oil companies. War, more war, war forever. The (nonexistent) Saddam/Al Qaida connection. Saint Reagan. Jesus (not quite as venerated as Reagan, but close). Washington DC’s broke and needs fixing, but don’t even think we had anything to do with breaking it.

Now for Sarah Palin.

I do not denigrate Palin for being from Alaska. I live in the city that’s the official jumping-off point for Alaska. It’s a great state. It would be even greater if it didn’t have so many corrupt Republicans running everything.

(And besides, I remember in 1992 when the John Carlsons pooh-poohed Bill Clinton as having been nothing but the “failed governor of a small state.”)

Nor do I denigrate Palin merely for being A Strong Woman.

Nor do I praise Palin merely for being A Strong Woman.

Having lived under the governorship of Dixy Lee Ray, I know that A Strong Woman can be just as capable of graft, cronyism, and regressive ideas as any man.

No, there are plenty of substantive reasons why Palin is a poor choice for vice president.

Just as there are plenty of substantive reasons why today’s John McCain is a poor choice for president.

As for Palin’s speechifying: Perfectly perfunctory by rabid-right standards. She held her own with the better-known demagogues who preceded her tonight. But by the oratorical standards of the party of George W. Bush, I know that ain’t saying much.