McCain's First Question to God on Judgment Day: "I really blew it with Palin, did I not?"

To which God replied,"Ya sure as shit did, Sparky, but at least ya didn't throw 'my friend' inta yer question. Good thing. Ya barely made Purgatory anyway and it's gonna be long enough as it is."

P.M. Carpenter

The Christian Right, God love 'em, must be slippin' a bit. Or at least they are in Ohio, home of the Lord's once-red 20 electoral votes.

According to the New York Times this morning there are, in the Buckeye State, "evangelical radio stations featur[ing] pastors praying for God to help voters ignore these 'awful' polls and vote His will."

I had to read that twice to sort out the inherent, medieval hocus-pocus and comprehend the revised, contemporary chain of command, but mostly I read it again -- and again, and yet again, I confess -- to savor the dawn of their disbelief.

In the real world -- the one in which it is human actions that portend human consequences -- one still marvels at just how badly John McCain balled things up; so badly, even the unholiest of holy rollers now suspect that God Himself won't pull his sorry butt out of the fire. Or so it is written.

But they should relax and pause and consider the one truly miraculous aspect of John McCain's campaign. We don't witness many honest-to-God miracles these days -- in fact, I'm told, it's been at least a couple thousand years -- but McCain, with or without celestial assistance, managed to pull one off.

Just as an aside, that's pretty much the whole basis of pie-in-the-sky christianity - miracles yesterday, miracles tomorrow. Sorry, no miracles today. In McCain's case, I think it's more karma than miracle. Garbage in, garbage out.

He managed, that is, to accomplish what had heretofore been regarded as the absolutely humanly impossible: He managed to make his presidential candidacy about his vice-presidential choice.

At one time McCain might have been able to bamboozle just enough of the GOP base and wandering independents on policy matters of the economy, war, energy, and so on. But with Palin he undercut his claim to judgment, and the general electorate's ensuing lack of confidence in that judgment then bled over.

Doubtless there were many electoral factors over which McCain had no direct control -- the timing of the housing bust, the stock market's implosion, increasing joblessness, a brutally unpopular president of GOP brand, etc. etc. These, combined, likely doomed McCain from the get-go. All he needed to seal the deal was Gov. Sarah Palin. And till the day he meets his maker, he'll kick himself for having taken that gamble, mournfully wondering if things could have been different.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe God's just feeling guilty and ashamed of himself for the awful practical joke he's played on us since 1980 and the capper, the flaming bag of dog poop on our doorstep since 2001. And well he should.