More on Sarah Palin

So you are in your first major elected position, and you have 4 kids, and then you find out you're pregnant, and then you find out the child will have Down Syndrome. Geez, pretty challenging circumstances.

And then you start hearing your name mentioned as a possible VP. Wow, what the hell is going on here? Are you guys nuts? Uh, my plate is already pretty full.

So against all the odds, crazy old Johnny Mac actually gives you the call. What do you say? What are you thinking?How do you wrap your head around the fact that you might go from part-time mayor of a small town in the middle of nowhere to heartbeat-from-the-presidency in 2 years?

Well, if you are a rational person, using normal thought processes, you don't. You can't. It doesn't make any sense, and you know it. So you say, Thank you so much for thinking of me, I am deeply honored, Senator, but I have to say no thank you.

But if you are an evangelical Christian, a Pentecostal Christian in fact, you have grown used to stories of miracles, of things that just can't happen somehow happening. You have read The Cross and the Switchblade, and you know how people "step out in faith," taking on mortgages to buy properties that are miles over their heads, and then having God miraculously come to their rescue at the last second by having some rich Christian businessman send them an unsolicited check for the exact amount they needed--some fabulous amount of money, right to the penny--$139,853.54 Praise God!

You can see yourself as David to Washington's Goliath, as Caleb, the only one who believed God and disregarded the giants in the land, as the Virgin Mary, for crying out loud, going about your business in boring old Nazareth, from whence nothing good ever comes, and cast John McCain as the angel Gabriel!

You can use your magical thinking and call it faith and get out of the boat and have a go at walking on water.

Right up until you sink like a stone, just like all the other water-walking messiahs out of disrespected backwaters.

Maybe there will be a crucifixion, with liberals playing the part of the Sadducees and Pharisees and the New York Times as Pontius Pilate.

Or maybe you will just fade away, find a likely excuse and give the answer you should have given in the first place--I am honored, but I am not ready to be Vice-President, thank you all the same.

In the real world, Santa Claus doesn't exist, and gravity does, and all the magical thinking in the world won't make a backwater, half-a-term governor into a senior statesman ready to step into the presidency.