“McCain was better than I expected. He was quick and focused. His humor worked. How many 72-year-olds speak that fluently?”

That’s conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, writing on Tina Brown’s new website, The Daily Beast. 

Yikes! And this guy is on McCain’s side, or at least he’s not for Obama. I don’t know what world Mr. Carlson inhabits where it’s a big surprise to find a 72-year-old who “speaks fluently.” This is the most stupid and insulting remark I’ve heard, in a political season packed with them.

Being 72 is not “old” in our current era. It just isn’t. John McCain’s age is an issue because of his health history and the fact that he is seeking the No. 1 stressful job on earth, one that ages even the most youthful and vibrant of men. (Only a year into the presidency, the Commander in Chief inevitably looks ragged, as if the aging process has ominously accelerated.)  

So, while I am certainly not in McCain’s corner, his health — should he become president — is a worry. His actual age, the number, is not what disturbs us. I remember being 72 very well!

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P.S.  Tucker Carlson was once part of the MSNBC all-boy, frat-house anti-Hillary Clinton pack. He and Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and the late Tim Russert. They all had a merry time excoriating Sen. Clinton and wondering night after night during her campaign, “When will she get out?” Hillary fought on and lost narrowly to Barack Obama. She did not immediately concede the race; spoke vigorously to her supporters, complimented Barack on the strength of his campaign and hinted that she wasn’t through yet.

When the live studio pick-up resumed at MSNBC you never saw such a group of dumbfounded men. I’ve always suspected that Hillary, whatever else might have been on her mind, knew that her “fans” at MSNBC would be frenzied and sleepless with worry that night. She was more than entitled to that little revenge.

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Thinking of Sen. Clinton leads invariably to thoughts of Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican Party’s new messiah. (It was “cultish” when Democratic admirers worshipped Barack Obama, but now that the conservative right has a glitzy, crowd-grabbing celebrity on its hands; please, go ahead, burn incense and chant!)

I am listening, watching and trying to find the secret of  Gov. Palin’s appeal. She is attractive and hardworking and energetic; obviously a multitasker deluxe. But the charisma and genuine charms her fans insist she possess escapes me. I think one reason Tina Fey’s impression of Gov. Palin has been so remarkably successful is that it doesn’t stray far from the reality. Palin looks like a B-actress on movie junket, with her winks, catchphrases and endless smiling. Her warmth? It’s an icy blast. Perhaps her more natural qualities are hidden, or perhaps they were natural before everybody told her how great she was and to keep it up, do it more, play to the balcony — in China!

I cannot help comparing her to — no, not Hillary Clinton — but to conservative provocateur Ann Coulter. (Let’s stay on the same ideological plane.) For all her wacky, over-the-top statements, Coulter is a really intelligent woman who believes what she says. But she also gets the humor in her own outsize persona (black cocktail dresses for morning interviews, spike heels and femme-fatale eye makeup).   Ann Coulter doesn’t make me feel I should look for the wind-up key in her back, or the implanted computer chip. And sometimes, yes, sometimes underneath her crazy, button-pushing rhetoric, Coulter makes a point. I have yet to see Palin make a point convincingly. And Coulter knows her stuff; she reads. You’d better be on your toes if you decide to go at it with Ann. I’ve never seen her caught in a “gotcha” moment. Though her opponents are often left with mouths agape.

Look, when exactly do you think Sarah Palin first heard the name Willam Ayers (the so-called former domestic terrorist who sat on several reputable Chicago boards with Obama, many years after Ayers ended his militant career)? I’d say about two weeks ago. Now Palin can’t stop dropping his name at anti-Obama rallies that are disturbing in their incendiary tone — like lynch mobs. Shouts of “Kill him!” "Treason!” and “Traitor” have been audience reactions to the new Palin/McCain strategy. John McCain showed a flicker of distress after one of these remarks. Palin kept grinning.

Who is more of a mystery? Obama, who has been on the scene big-time for two years — mercilessly vetted — or Sarah Palin, who was propelled to national prominence only six weeks ago? Her vetting is stymied because any questions are considered “attacks” on her character. Ann Coulter, if she was in the same position, would welcome probing questions — “Ask me, you liberal wussy, see if you can trip me up!” I don’t think Coulter would hide behind the shield of her party, plead her femininity or use her family. Coulter thinks very little of the “elite right-wing media” but she’s not afraid of it. She would certainly not sit still while John McCain, or any man, settled in next to her at an interview in an effort to “‘splain” her remarks, as if she were Lucy Ricardo with McCain playing Ricky.

In any case, Ann Coulter sometimes makes me laugh. Sarah Palin does not.