OK, I admit I chose the title for this post with search engines in mind… but it’s become apparent that Gov. Sarah Palin has placed her own ambition above all else, and that’s not a quality that I admire.

I applaud and admire women who raise children and simultaneously pursue their chosen career. But, no one gets more than 24 hours in a day, we all have to sleep, and so there is a finite limit on how much anyone can do. Choices must be made and it’s simply impossible to give your all to everything.

So, Gov. Palin has an incredibly demanding job already as a governor. She has a family that she clearly loves and values. She has a baby with Down’s syndrome. She has an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter. Can anyone reasonably say that she did not already have too much on her plate to handle all of that? And then when asked by McCain to be his vice-presidential running mate, she said “yes.”

So, her already full plate now includes a new full-time job as campaigner. Where’s the time, attention and care for all the rest of her responsibilities coming from? And let’s assume the unthinkable, that she wins the vice-presidency and John McCain dies in office: suddenly she’s the President of the USA. Uh, what about family values?

Then there’s the point that drives home just how naked her ambition is: she’s so unqualified that she’s hurting the Republican ticket. She’s put her own desires above what’s best for her party. Of course, I can’t really blame her judgment for that, as it’s become clear she doesn’t have much mental capacity to view herself objectively. She probably believes that she is an asset to the ticket, so it’s McCain’s judgment and naked ambition that are at fault there. He’s taken a wild gamble in an attempt to resurrect his campaign, and if he were lucky enough to win the bet and then die in office, all of America would be the losers.

Country first? Not by a longshot, John. It’s all about you. And given that, your running mate is a perfectly understandable choice, since she’s all about herself, too.

You have to love the irony: McCain tried to smear Obama as nothing but a “celebrity” like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, and then he goes and adds a celebrity babe as his running mate, to serve as our insurance policy against his old age should he win and die in office. She’s collecting more tabloid attention than either Paris or Britney these days! Guess Paris Hilton’s video really got him thinking about the advantage of having a hot candidate on the ticket.