The Barracuda Empties The Pool

There's plenty of reason for Senator Obama to be upset. He delivers the speech of his life in a setting that cost millions of dollars to build and took months to plan and prepare in front of 80,000 cheering fans.

Then, in less than 12 hours, he's old news. All the air has been sucked from the room, TV correspondents left slack-jawed, newspaper publishers wishing they hadn't laid off quite so many reporters.

Sarah "The Barracuda" Palin, Governor of Alaska, has set the news cycle, not just for the day but, in conjunction with the convention in St. Paul, for the next week.

I haven't particularly cared for John McCain as a prospective president but the brilliance of his selection is impossible to overstate. In one fell swoop he has electrified his base, garnered real attention from Hillary supporters, solidified his reputation as an agent of real change in Washington, steered the Republican Party in a truly new direction and generated millions of dollars of free publicity.

Wow. Just wow.