McCain Was Blinded by Beauty

For Kathleen Parker, it’s suddenly clear why John McCain picked Sarah Palin. Parker's husband called it first, then a male friend confessed, “I’m sexually attracted to her. I don’t care that she knows nothing.” Robert Draper’s much-discussed New York Times magazine piece notes that McCain’s first real meeting with Palin was a cozy talk down by a creek and a sycamore tree. “One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to reckon that McCain was smitten," says Parker.

That’s not to suggest the running mates are sharing anything but a ticket. Parker is merely saying that pretty women have clouded men’s judgment for centuries. One 2003 study proved that the mere sight of attractive women causes men to make poor long-term decisions. McCain seems to have done just that under the sycamore tree, she writes, and may soon “join the pantheon of men who, intoxicated by a woman’s power, made the wrong call.” (More Election 2008 stories.)