We're in uncharted territory now, peeps.

Wasn't it just a couple of days ago that the media was lauding the choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate?

Well, it sure didn't take long to unravel, did it?

This is where reactive thinking gets you. This all started because the TV last week was full of the most successful Democratic Convention ever, capped with that incredible speech by Barack Obama. The fact that a Democrat stood up on national TV and called Republicans out on their tired campaign tactics - and then was cheered by everyone from Keith Olbermann to Pat Buchanan for doing so - must have thrown the Fear Of God into the McCain campaign, and they reacted out of what amounts to blind panic.

Ergo, Sarah Palin.

Since the announcement was made, McCain's boys have racked up a string of bad decisions in an attempt to neutralize or minimize the first bad decision. Announcing Palin - and trotting her out onto the national stage before they'd done any of the homework required for making sure a pick of this stature is a good one - may have won them a news cycle and pulled attention away from Obama's speech. But that's the only benefit they have gotten out of the Palin pick. It's been downhill from there.

McCain's Boys must have seriously believed that they could take advantage of what was a confluence of events - the Palin announcement, the looming spectre of a hurricane hitting New Orleans on Opening Night, and their own convention attracting the same type of attention the Democrats got last week - and seize the narrative on the news shows. I can imagine that they expected to coast through the weekend with McCain (and Palin) looking like a presidential team in Mississippi, benevolent guiding hands bringing the region (and the nation) through a crisis situation, cementing the imagery of Republicans in charge.

The first variable - the weather - failed them when Gustav thankfully came ashore in Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane instead of Scrambles, the Death Dealer. It left them looking once again like reactive fools, having scrapped their convention schedule in anticipation of putting on a great show of compassionate Conservatism, and left them opening their convention with Laura Bush and Cindy McCain as the Big Attraction.

The second variable, and a point which the McCain campaign still doesn't seem to grasp, is that the internet never sleeps. Just about every lefty blog you can name put the hammer down on Friday afternoon and started digging up all the embarrassing information that the McCain vetting team should have found on their own. And over the course of a holiday weekend, the blogs ended up driving the media narrative and causing the McCain campaign to panic and over-react again when they released the statement about Palin's daughter's pregnancy this morning.

And the deluge of negative Palin stories today was probably the worst one-day dump of bad news ever. It apparently ended with Palin snubbing the media and one of McCain's Boys calling reporters the 'Elite Northeastern Media.' Not the best way to keep the John Kings and Andrea mitchells of the world on your side, boys.

And that's where we are right now. The GOP threw a party where nobody came, the Great White Hope From Up North is looking like a hopelessly corrupt small-time political hustler, and McCain's campaign was last seen lobbing insults at the media as they ran from the room and locked the door behind them.

I can honestly say that I've never seen anything remotely like it, and I've been alive for a while now. but like any good soap opera, it will have me tuning in to see what the fuck they'll come up with tomorrow.