And while people may be tired of polemics about abortion, that's what this whole roiling mess is about.
That's hardly a distraction.
It's a reminder of what's at stake in this election.
Palin was picked over McCain's top choices of Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge precisely because of her extreme opinion on abortion, according to news reports.
The maverick Mr. McCain knew that either of those pro-choice men would cause open revolt among the Republican delegates at the convention.
So he kowtowed and nominated an apparently ill-vetted candidate with the perfect pedigree on reproductive rights - and little else going for her.
As Rebecca Traister wrote yesterday on Salon.com:
"This election cycle could turn from one that was electrifying and energizing for women into one that situates their political prospects firmly back in the feminized territory of sex scandals, babies and mothering.
"Women - the same women who may or may not have supported Hillary, and who are applauding McCain's supposedly go-girl choice of Palin as his veep - should be furious at the Republican nominee for ensuring that the history-making woman he tapped will be considered not on her intellectual or political merits, but on her reproductive ones."
We all knew that McCain's campaign was going to be about perpetuating the past, in his pro-Bush stances about the war in Iraq, taxes and other failed policies. And Palin's appointment to the ticket - a cynical, desperate ruse to appeal to women voters - is a vivid reminder of another part of the past that will be resurrected if the GOP wins.
Because she's pro-slavery.
She believes that women should be enslaved to their wombs, that they should risk their health rather than end a pregnancy that's unwanted or unwelcome or involves a deformed embryo.
