NP: The Futureheads, This Is Not The World

Since Today's Papers had already beat me to the punch on my last allegedly witty Sarah Palin title, we must take it up a notch, although Olbermann already made the direct Michael Palin crack on Friday's Countdown.

Anyway, here's the rundown of all the Sarah Palin-related reading I've found interesting in the last day and a half or so:

• At the end of this post, Kevin Drum indicts McCain strategist Steve Schmidt for focusing so narrowly on winning daily news cycles. I actually think it's slightly different than that. The Palin pick can be seen as Rovian in that it inherently counts on the electorate not doing their homework, of simply consuming the broad strokes of McCain burnishing his maverick image with a surprise pick and that she's a woman, and not putting in the effort to dig any deeper. Whether this can still work is a bigger question, and 38 million people watching Obama's speech on Thursday paints a picture of a more engaged electorate. If anything makes this pick blow up in McCain's face, it's a more engaged electorate that's better educated on the campaigns and the candidates.
• Steve Benen at Washington Monthly's Political Animal points out that the Obama campaigns initial advertising response is to pretty much ignore her, calling out George W. Bush as McCain's "real" running mate. Which seems pretty canny, actually. And McClatchy tries to get Obama to comment directly on Palin's lack of experience, but the candidate does a good job of both avoiding the issue and encouraging voters to look at her more closely, saying "You guys can take a look at Gov. Palin's record and Joe Biden's record and make your own judgments in terms of who you think has what it takes to be an outstanding vice president. I feel confident about my choice. I'll let John McCain talk about his."
• My new favorite political blog points out that the whole notion of trying to limit Obama's convention bounce with the Palin announcement is flawed, as they dissipate naturally on their own.
• James Fallows thinks we're going to see how incredibly unprepared Palin is for the intense scrutiny of the presidential campaign very quickly.
• Josh Marshall is still going hard at the Troopergate story, but on Friday night, both Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow dismissed it as a non-story, so it will be interesting who prevails in driving the media narrative there.