Stuck in the past, but who?

After repeatedly accusing Joe Biden of being stuck in the past whenever Biden made the reasonable and verifiable claim that Palin's and McCain's policies would largely continue those of the current Bush administration, Governor Palin is now parading an attack on Barack Obama by focusing on an acquaintance he had some forty years ago. As Michael Cooper, writing in the NYTimes on October 4, reports:

Stepping up the Republican ticket’s attacks on Senator Barack Obama, Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday seized on a report about Mr. Obama’s relationship with a former 1960s radical to accuse him of “palling around with terrorists.”

The fact that no substantive link has been established between Mr. Ayers and Obama and that the matter is very, very far from relating to anything like an Obama policy seems a small matter to Palin, the sprightly hypocrite.

So we should all ask, I think, who is truly stuck in the past, and why?

Turning decidedly toward the future, with a very scary insinuation, Frank Rich has penned an incisive commentary on the present state of the McCain/Palin ticket, which concludes like this:

You have to wonder how long it will be before (certain Republicans) plead with (McCain) to think of his health, get out of the way and pull the ultimate stunt of flipping the ticket. Palin, we can be certain, wouldn’t even blink.

For "social conservatives," those who, for instance, vote on the issue of abortion alone or on a few "moral" issues while ignoring issues of war and the economy, Palin is the perfect candidate. For them, it matters not that she is ridiculously ignorant of politics in the full sense of the word. Should a ticket-flip be pulled on the American public--McCain's health, argues Rich, may well warrant it--it would be a victory for the most radical social conservatives within the Republican party, whether or not Palin actually succeeds in her presidential ambitions this time around.

On a related note, Maureen Dowd has made a sobering assessment of Ms. Palin's "inspiring" use of language, and it ain't pretty.