On July 7, 2008 I began a posting of advice to McCain thus:

"A woman as his running mate is for McCain a good idea, but not just any woman, and definitely not Carly Fiorina. "

I went on to discuss  as a plausible not-just-any-woman candidate the memorably-named Olympia Snowe, noting she came from Maine, the state that is farthest north, and thus a nice complement to the southwest of McCain, a stately  way of raising Arizona. 

I made a mistake. I overlooked Sarah Palin, whose bone structure holds up even better than that of Katrina vanden Heuvel.

But the mistake I made was understandable. Because, before I made that one, I had made a larger one..No one, you see, had ever bothered to tell me that Alaska, some years ago, had finally achieved statehood.

Now I know.