Proving that there's no progressive breakthrough that's too passé for Republicans to pretend to act on for the first time, John McCain on Friday selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Of course, this is a watershed moment in presidential politics that's bound to draw numerous comparisons to Jim Belushi's selection seven years ago of Courtney Thorne-Smith as his TV wife. No, seriously, if the Republicans had actually been interested in breaking new ground, they would have made this pick 24 years ago, when Palin was really smokin' hot.

While Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale's VP pick in the previous millennium, could not be reached for comment, we're pretty certain her response would have been something along the lines of, "Big freakin' whoopdie do, we tried this shit nearly a quarter century ago."

Then again, the choice of Palin does reinforce McCain's maverick image. He threw out the established guidelines for picking a VP (careful consideration of one's record and decision-making abilities) and went with the Fox News method of simply picking the hottest broad he could find.

And while this does seem an obvious reaction to Barack Obama not picking Hillary Clinton, the choice here seems particularly forced and off-kilter. John, there's a reason Bob Hope had a young Brooke Shields and Loni Anderson appear with him on his TV specials. It looked funny, and Bob himself had run out of anything clever to say. Is that really what you're going for?

Seriously, you already had the lecherous middle-aged elk-hunting demographic locked down. How does this help you? Are you hoping this plays into the misplaced fantasies of young male voters? Are you counting on frat boys showing up at the polls wearing "I (Heart) VPilf's" T-shirts?

Apparently, John McCain has taken the idea of balancing the ticket to previously unheard of extremes. As he vetted candidates, he probably thought to himself, "You know, I don't wear my hair anything at all like the sexy job interviewer in a John Holmes movie. My ticket lacks balance! I shall remedy that gaping vulnerability straightaway!"

Sadly, we may all soon have front seats to our own racy melodrama playing out on a national stage: "Sarah Palin: Barely Constitutionally Eligible. (Too Hot for Alaska!)"