* It’s hard to fathom how Sen. Dick Durbin could be this stupid…

Nor does Durbin agree with the characterization that Palin’s experience as governor means she is more prepared than the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden to take over as vice president or, if needed, as president.

“How you could possibly draw a parallel between that experience as Alaska governor and being a vice president or even president of the United States is a stretch, as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

That’s just a blatant insult to Alaska. Yes, it has fewer residents than Lake County. But remember what Barack Obama said just last week in Denver? “Change doesn’t come from Washington, it comes to Washington.” This tack by Durbin just doesn’t jibe with last week’s message.

* The Republicans were obviously woefully unprepared to defend their nominee in the face of this crazy storm of criticism, innuendo and probing. And they’ve flip-flopped completely about “experience” since just last week.

If you don’t feed the Beast, the Beast will feed on you. The Beast is now feeding like crazy on Palin.

But Durbin walked right into it. His party has a standard bearer with zero administrative experience (not counting his so-far impressive campaign), and Durbin wants to talk about the experience issue?

* Billy Dennis pointed to this Andrew Sullivan piece the other day…

Palin looks to me like a lovely person and a good local politician, with some inevitable rough spots. I’d be delighted if she took a leadership role in the GOP in the future. But in the same league as Obama?

Do Republicans really think that little of him?

I guess they do. We are looking at a different person.

* As somebody wrote the other day (can’t remember who, but I think it was Larry), this is the same sort of mindset about Obama that Illinois Republicans had in 2004. Just get a well-spoken black guy to run against the Democrats’ well-spoken black guy and things will cancel themselves out. Big mistake.

It’s also, obviously, at least some of the mindset behind Palin. Hillary supporters are unhappy? Well, let’s throw a woman out there. No matter that her political beliefs are completely the opposite. She’s got the right chromosome arrangement.

* But local and state leadership is way too often dismissed by the Beltway crowd (including, as we can plainly see, Dick Durbin) as insignificant and irrelevant. It’s part of the problem with that town. Anything or anyone outside of their tiny radar screen just isn’t worth examining. Obama was almost universally dismissed at first because nobody in the punditocracy had apparently ever attended a cocktail party with him. That goes quintuple for Palin.

As a result, the Palin pick has caused one of those oh so special media frenzies that the DC establishment press revels in like pigs at the trough. It’s fascinating to watch, of course, but completely goofy. We’ve got the teen pregnancy thing, the secessionist thing, the Ted Stevens thing, the Abramoff thing, the car wash thing, the book banner thing, even the wacky preacher thing. It’s all coming at us faster than we can comprehend, and without the proper context or perspective, it’s just an infotainment blur.

Because of this gross overreaction, the bar has now been set exceedingly low. A decent convention speech by Palin tonight - one that defies the media portrait of a backwards, white trash mountain woman (which should be pretty easy to accomplish, since she isn’t) - will likely settle things down quite a bit. After things have calmed, a follow-up press conference should do the trick. Reporters will look like raving lunatics, and if she keeps her cool and answers the questions, she’ll come off fine.

* Let’s do our very best in comments to keep the multitude of goofy DC talking points out of our discussion. Try to be original, please. I know this story is like crack cocaine, but we can attempt to rise above.