These are dark times for these United States.

War in Iraq. Stock market going all Louganis. War in Afghanistan. Home foreclosures driving little old ladies to shoot themselves. War against Iran if Dick Cheney gets his 2008 Christmas wish. And Tampa Bay is four wins from the World Series.

Apocalypse, if not now, may be really friggin’ soon. (Tampa Bay?! Srsly?)

Despite the impending calamity, our nation — President Ronald Wilson Reagan’s shining city upon a hill — looks ahead optimistically. As cool fall air blows and the leaves turn, we gird ourselves for the next installment in our democratic tradition: Town Hall Smackdown ‘08! — Barack Despite What the MSM Say, My Middle Name Really Is Hussein Obama versus John Can I Finally Go Balls-Out Negative On This Punk (Like The Viet Cong Did To Me, As You Might Recall)? McCain. Truly, prosperity is just around the corner.

Yet before we bid farewell to last week’s VP undercard, an overlooked portion of that debate deserves closer examination. While it did not go completely unnoticed, it was obscured by BlinkGate, Say-It-Ain’t-So-Joe-Mania, and Exceeding-Preposterously-Low-Expectations-Palooza. And it portends doom for the Land of the Free.

Two simple words…

Biden cried.

You saw it. 70 million of you saw it. Well, minus the ones who flipped to Ace Of Cakes.

What in the holy name of Brian’s Song was THAT about? Senator, just who do you think you are? Hillary?

In a post-9/11 world, crying does not cut it.

You know who cries?
This guy:

France - 0 for 2 and counting

Here’s the caption of this photo (from the National Archives):
A Frenchman weeps as German soldiers march into the French capital, Paris, on June 14, 1940.”

A Frenchman weeps.

End of story.

Our beloved homeland needs a real man one heartbeat away from the presidency.

A real man like Sarah Palin.

A God-fearing, moose-dressing, Couric-wrestling, wolf-assassinating, abstinence-preaching, Trig-Track-Willow-Piper-and-Bristol- birthing MAN. Remember, while Joe was going all Chris Crocker on us, Sarah Palin didn’t blink. (True, she winked and twitched liked a Mat-Su Valley meth addict, but that was all about the sexy.) After Biden was done mopping up his man-tears, the Alaska governor plowed ahead like a snowmobile tearing up a polar bear’s only remaining feeding ground with the unique assertion that John McCain has been the consummate maverick in the Senate over all these years, then shared some original thoughts on how McCain is both a maverick and a maverick.

Like any strong leader (think Attila the Hun or Josef Stalin or George W. Bush), she sure as Shinola didn’t let a little boo-hoo-ing by her opponent affect her in the least. While your appeaser-types (see Monsieur Le Frog, above) would have shown empathy by offering a consoling comment about Biden’s tragic loss of his wife and daughter in a horrible car accident that also maimed his two surviving sons, future Vice President Palin (fingers crossed) displayed the kind of callous disregard for human feeling that will make her a formidable foe. Just wait until she goes face-to-face with other secondary- and tertiary-level world leaders at assorted state funerals in countries she’s never been to. Bet your bottom rial that Ahmadinejad’s quaking in his Members Only jacket.

Now, a crying Democrat can sometimes be a good thing. The 1972 election is illustrative. Edmund Muskie, front-runner in the Democratic primaries, bawled like a baby when red-blooded New Hampshire publisher William Loeb attacked his wife for hitting the bottle a bit too much in the pages of Loeb’s Manchester Union Leader. (N.B.: John McCain has supposedly called his wife far worse things, and what does he have to show for it? 5 years of torture at the hands of Charlie. You’re welcome, America.) Soon enough, Muskie was out, McGovern was in, and 520 electoral votes later, Richard Milhous Nixon returned for his second term, where he eliminated the gold standard, created the EPA, and was instrumental in Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein winning a Pulitzer Prize.

But those halcyon days — where a bit of the old waterworks meant the end of a political career — are gone, along with other things that made our country great, like the steel industry, corporal punishment in schools, and wars with well-defined strategic and political goals. And our nation is the worse for it. Sure, Sarah should doff those killer spectacles and pump out the saline. To mitigate the inevitable liberal media sniping about her emotionality, she could just get pregnant again, then blame the blubbering on hormones. (Heck, it could happen — that Todd’s a frisky one. Besides, just six more kids and they can field the entire Wasilla High football team).

Some might even demand that, for Sarah Palin to ascend to the White House (er, along with John McCain, of course), she must be a woman who cries like a man who cries like a woman. But is that a nation we want to live in? With our gosh-darned leaders all sobbin’?

Thanks, but no thanks.

takepart Find out more about the election beyond the candidates’ composure or lack thereof, at OpenSecrects.org and Public Agenda

(Photo: National Archives)