WASHINGTON — In this election year, "change" has been the catnip of the liberals. It renders them blissful. Change will put an end to the dominance of American politics by the "Washington insiders." And the instrumentality of that "change" will be a first-term senator of unassailable probity, Sen. Barack H. Obama, who curiously enough began his career a decade ago in Chicago as a cog in the political machine of Mayor Richard Daley. To the critics' charges that Prophet Obama is short on experience, his supporters respond that he has enormous experience, which is obviously untrue. Also, he has chosen as his running mate Sen. Joe Biden, a six-term Washington insider who is a rough and tough Irish guy from the hell's kitchen of Scranton, Pa., which is about the first time that the public has heard that stretcher.

Yet these palpably absurd claims have taken on the dimension of commonplace truth in the political media. A presidential candidate running on the claim that he is new to the dirty game of politics can claim he is sufficiently experienced to hold the highest office in the land. What is more, he can claim that he is unencumbered by Washington insiders while boasting of his Washington insider running mate, whose record, by the way, as an airhead and occasional plagiarist apparently is going to be officially overlooked. All these contradictions trouble not at all that institution that columnist Tony Blankley calls the mainstream moron media. What does trouble the morons is Sen. John McCain's choice of a running mate.

The liberals' complaint is that she, Gov. Sarah Palin, is inexperienced. Further, with five children — one a pregnant teenager, another with Down syndrome — she has too many domestic responsibilities to be in government. She also has a son who is going off to war, and frankly I am curious as to how this young man will be held against her. Now, you might recall that of the past five presidents, four became presidents after serving as governors. Until just the other day, Washington's political experts would tell you that it has been a governor's mansion, not the United States Senate, that has served as the training ground of the modern president. Further, you might recall that feminists were exhorting their sisters to "have it all."

Have a career and a family. Domestic chores were to be shared with one's husband. Gov. Palin has a husband. So why can she not serve as vice president? Rep. Geraldine Ferraro had children and actually got to be a Washington insider before running for vice president. The feminists never ordered her back to the house and hearth. Well, maybe the problem for Gov. Palin is that troubling matter raised by the investigative reporters of The New York Times this week, to wit, her husband was arrested on a DUI charge 22 years ago. If any of you ever run for public office, be sure you know your spouse's police record going back, presumably, to the age of reason — that would be age 7.

There is a huge whiff of hypocrisy here. That it comes from practically every outlet of media should remind us of our insistence at The American Spectator that so polluted with liberal politics is the political culture that it is rightly termed a Kultursmog . The workings of the smog rarely have been as visible as in the aftermath of Sen. McCain's selection of Gov. Palin to be his running mate. She, with her political career and lifestyle values, is a perfect blend of feminism and traditional womanhood. Yet with astonishing speed, she is being depicted in the mainstream moron media as an unacceptable vice presidential candidate. The salient charge is that she lacks experience, though one would have to be pretty thick not to notice that she has more experience in governing than the Democrats' supposedly experienced, yet somehow innocent and untried presidential candidate.

Also being pumped into the Kultursmog is the canard that McCain showed bad judgment and haste in choosing the governor of Alaska. Actually, McCain's campaign reveals plenty of evidence that its seasoned political operators researched her carefully, and the media's supposed exposés were no surprise to anyone but the morons. As for McCain's judgment, this is the guy who in late 2006, when the roof was falling in on us in Iraq, sent President George W. Bush a three-page letter arguing for what has come to be called "the surge." With years of military experience (some of it firsthand) behind him — and having read recent scholarly reports on conditions in Iraq — McCain argued that an additional 30,000 troops would create the security to allow a political solution.

Almost everyone was against McCain, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, some field commanders, the Iraq Study Group, members of the mainstream moron media, and the Prophet Obama. Now we know McCain, the agent of change and bedeviler of Washington insiders, was right. Alas, there is no applause in the Kultursmog .

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator, a contributing editor to The New York Sun, and an adjunct scholar at the Hudson Institute. His newest book is "The Clinton Crack-Up: The Boy President's Life After the White House." To find out more about R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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