Po Little Co: Bill Kristol On Daily Show

I'm watching Bill Kristol talking with Stewart right now and it is completely disturbing. Almost sad. The intellectual dishonesty is clear and seems a little hard to wear.

For Kristol, I mean, of course. Every time he defends McCain he gets this look on his face like he is about to cry and laugh at the same time.

First - can we stop pretending as if Palin has gotten a bad rap? What? She can't take some Tina Fey jokes? This is a woman who is repeatedly trying to call Barack a terrorist so don't give me this crap about how Caribou Barbie is unfair.

The woman is a radical right wing religious hardliner who has just won the political lottery of the century. She was also brought in during one of the most negative campaigns run in some time. Obama called off the potential scandal of her family, told a rally of his to stop booing McCain - but she won't even pause to perhaps suggest that the n-word might be off base.

The current talk is that the Republican think tank is considering pushing Palin for a 2012 run. I can only hope this is true. Perhaps in hindsight they'll realize that this election year has been a repudiation of the Rovian tactics which may have served well in simpler times and before the veil of 9/11 became as transparent as it was - that perhaps drumming up the fringe while hoping the middle won't notice. While McCain has been courting the same groups that helped push Bush over the narrow margin, the Democratic party has been actually getting some smarts when it comes out to pushing early voting, getting out the vote and maintaining focus on the issues.

Kristol seems to be stuck in this paradigm as well. His support for a campaign which has clearly gone off the rails, as well for a woman that - as John himself pointed out - would be far more likely to attack a man in Kristol's shoes as not being part of "Real America" than do the same - must be as painful of a position to keep as it was to watch.