Luck Be a Lady Tonight!

While awaiting Governor Palin's coming evisceration of Senator Joe Biden (D-Amtrak, by way of Scranton), read this positive profile of Sarah Palin and her family in {gulp} The Washington Post:

That's how it goes in the Heath home, and how it has always gone. It's a household that explains much about Palin, 44, and how she acquired her set-jawed, swaggering demeanor, one that her mother first noticed "about the time she started to walk." Above all, the house suggests how she came by her dissident, out-of-category feminism, a code by which she tackles old-boy networks relentlessly, while remaining blank if not unsympathetic on traditional women's issues with a capital W, such as sexism in the workplace.

Bring it on, St. Louis! I can't wait!

UPDATE: I wanted to include this excerpt from near the end of the piece, in case you don't read the whole thing:

No one gave the Warriors any chance to win a title when they drew East High, a large Anchorage school that had beaten them by 40 points earlier in the season, as their first-round opponent in the state tournament. Wasilla won, 50-48, but shortly before time expired, Palin came down wrong and sprained her ankle, an injury she would play through during the rest of the tournament.

In the championship game they met another large institution, Service High. Wasilla took a comfortable early lead, but Palin, playing on her heavily wrapped, swollen, blue ankle, couldn't move well enough to defend, and Service began to catch up. Teeguarden motioned her to the bench. "I just had to get her out, it was painful to watch her," he says. Palin was devastated as she took a seat, and the coach put an arm around her. "Without you we wouldn't be here right now," he said. "You're not done."

She remained on the bench until slightly less than a minute remained. Then Teeguarden turned and motioned her back into the game. Wasilla was nursing just a four-point lead, and Palin was one of his coolest heads. He wanted her on the floor.

With about 30 seconds left, Palin was fouled. She went to the free-throw line. If she missed, Service would get the ball with a chance to cut Wasilla's lead to just two points. If she made the shot, her team would be up five -- making it a three-possession game. She licked her fingertips, dribbled the ball a time or two, and knocked down the shot. "That iced it," Teeguarden says. "At that point we exhaled." Wasilla won, 58-53.

Michele Kohinka, who was the center for Service High, described Palin this way: "She was a little floor general. She didn't score a lot, but she was a scrappy defender and was always the first to the loose balls."

Gene Hackman must be contacted for the role of Coach Teeguarden!