John McCain will take the stage tonight to accept the Republican nomination, but after listening to the sturm and drang the last couple of days, let me throw in my two cents about his VP pick, Sarah Palin.

Some would argue she was a dynamic choice. She was certainly unexpected- as unexpected as revelations about her 17 year old daughter's pregnancy, which has, due to scrutiny (heaven forbid), led to charges of sexism and allowed Republican males to jump on their noble steeds to protect her honor.

The odd thing is, it really didn't matter to John McCain that she was a woman, only insomuch as her sex was another check box on his parts list. Maybe tap disgruntled Hillary voters. Check. Conservative Evangelicals. Check. Creationists. Check. Right-to-Lifers. Check. NRA. Check. Oil Lobby. Check. As McCain ran out of time and the convention loomed, desperate to appease these special interest groups, seems like he fed the parameters into a search engine and out popped her name. 'Who?', said John.

So here we have a gun-toting, pit bull in lipstick (her words), who'd love to see Federal control over womens' reproductive organs, a potential heartbeat away from the Presidency. Nice call Johnny.

And here's my peeve regarding Bristol Palin's pregnancy. It's deserving of privacy absolutely, but not avoided, due to its policy ramifications. Sarah Palin, Governor, and now VP of USA candidate, believes strongly in abstinence-only teaching and not any form of comprehensive sex-ed dealing with, among other things, contraception (and she's worked to quash those type of programs). Guess what? Abstinence-only doesn't work. Proof? It didn't work with Palin's very own daughter, who became pregnant having unprotected, premarital sex. So if she'll stick by one failed policy, what other flawed policies might she adhere to ideologically that could be detrimental to the nation should she she attain a top spot?

Last, I find it shocking that supposedly Palin's daughter 'made the choice' to keep her unborn child (to the hallelujahs of the the radical Christian right), but in Palin's perfect world, even pregnancies that are the product of rape and incest would be illegal to terminate. No choice for other mothers' daughters there.