Definition: Adjective describing anything coming out of the McCain campaign these days. The outrage over “lipstick on a pig” has reached fantastic new heights. Or lows, depending on how you conceive it. It’s gotten so bad that I heard a Hillary supporter turned McCain — at a Virginia rally on NPR — claiming that Obama is now calling women names, “which is what fifth graders do — and I don’t want a fifth grader running our country!” (To cheers of hundreds of Palindrones.) (Sigh.) (Serious sigh.)

Guiliani and Palin both managed what could be a new low in a Republican National Convention: Mocking someone for being a community organizer. Guiliani’s assertion that Obama was the least-qualified candidate in 100 years was interesting, to say the least — should Guiliani have won the nomination, the same charge would have been leveled at him, as mayor to President isn’t your typical Presidential route. Palin energized the base, to be sure. At least one blog I ran across this morning pointed out that she’s likely energized both bases.

To watch tonight: Can McCain possibly gain back the middle tonight? After seeing Palin go full red meat last night, and after watching the crowd chant, “Drill, baby, drill,” I’m having my doubts. The election probably hinges on it. (But at least they’re having fun.)

What to say on a day where the star of NBC’s Law and Order and a losing Vice Presidential candidate receives top billing over the sitting President of the United States? Some quick thoughts.

The wargy theme was to be expected — McCain’s noticeably been touting his POW status, and the “Country First” campaign slogan sounds like a discarded remnant from the U.S. Army’s new ad campaign. Still, though, the story of the Medal of Honor recipient who dove on a grenade in Iraq to save fellow Navy SEALs … is that an uncomfortable metaphor for what the party’s having to do with the Palin nomination? I mean, earlier this week, a mere three days after the nomination, InTrade opened with bids that Palin would withdraw as VP prior to the election. But it’s not like the GOP won’t highlight the war — it’s very much a case of “dance with who brung ya” right now.

Bush did what he had to do for party loyalty, and the party did what it had to do putting him on, though having him on in the 9 pm ET rather than the 10 pm ET was curious — as if they were trying to hide him or something. (Certainly not.) Bush mentioning the “angry left” was a pretty quick play to partisan politics so soon after we were all supposed to work together on Hurricane Gustav, taking off Republican hats and putting on American hats.

Fred Thompson was a hit (to this crowd), despite flubbing some of his Obama attack lines with stumbles. We’re back to some of the old tried-and-true chestnuts — the media is liberal! The Dems will raise your taxes! Thompson actually tried to tie Obama to future taxes on businesses to paying more for groceries and gasoline. Just some sage advice, Fred — this might not be the election you want to remind people they’re paying more for groceries and gasoline.

Benedict Lieberman also appeared. It’s heartbreaking to watch on several levels — it’s becoming increasingly clear that McCain really wanted him as VP, as much as he tries to sell Palin as reformer. It’s clear that the Republicans would have none of that — though I still imagine a scenario where, post-election, Palin steps down as VP “because of the kids” and because she “loves Alaska too much,” and then McCain just goes ahead and appoints Lieberman, conservatives be damned. Something to watch in the fall elections is how much of a margin Democrats gain in the Senate and how swift the rebuke is against the esteemed Senator from Connecticut.

Tonight’s Palin night. I assume ratings will be high.

Bush and Lieberman are on the schedule for tonight.

Well, okay, then! This guarantees pretty much everyone in the nation tonight will have a visceral reaction to someone on the screen.

It’s deeply disappointing, really. Today was supposed to be the most uncomfortable day of the Republican National Convention — President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Senator Joe Lieberman were all scheduled to speak. That’s the Dynamic Duo currently rocking a 30 percent approval rating, plus the traitorous Lieberman who’s basically no longer liked in either party. Having any three of them on the podium automatically shifts some uncomfortable comments and questions onto McCain; having all three of them there makes it high school carnival dunk tank night.

So “scaling back” so as not to offend those worried about Gustav victims — or to avoid the PR disaster of a live reminder of Katrina split-screen with Bush in St. Paul — seems to be just about the biggest Godsend the Republicans have had this campaign season. The single goal for McCain this week should be to get out of St. Paul without the stink of the Bush/Cheney brand on him. Now that Obama’s unveiled the “you voted with Bush 90 percent of the time” line, McCain’s either got to deny, deflect, or act the maverick, and has to convince Americans that the U.S. under McCain will be different than the U.S. under Bush. Hard to do.

Ironically, the one thing he’s talking about doing to close the convention would put him closer to Bush than he apparently thinks it will — delivering his acceptance speech from the Gulf Coast. It smacks of photo op. It smacks of Bush on the aircraft carrier saying “Mission Accomplished,” Bush in Jackson Square right after Katrina saying Katrina will be rebuilt, even Bush on the rubble of the World Trade Center saying we’d get the terrorists responsible (rather than, you know, a completely different group of people in Iraq).

It would be a horrible move. It may be in the works.

And the most talked about RNC-related news item of the day still involves a pregnant 17-year-old.

So, to be clear, if McCain had picked Tim Pawlenty as his running mate, we wouldn’t be quite this aflutter.

In picking Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John McCain has changed the landscape of the 2008 election — but for how long? And how much? Is Palin going to be a flash-in-the-pan celebrity, of the variant he claims Obama is? She seems tailor-made for a guest appearance on The View and would be great fodder for a 60 Minutes feature to scoop up some octogenerian CBS viewers, but what then? The Vice Presidential debate certainly got interesting — maybe the most interesting one since ‘92, when Admiral James Stockdale used his fifteen minutes of fame to look into the camera and actually say, “Who am I? What am I doing here?” As some have cheekily observed, the Republicans have arrived squarely in the 1980s with the selection.

Politically, it’s an interesting move. It’s not a simple ploy to grab Clinton suppoters — despite Palin’s mention in her “hi, nation” speech that voters still have a shot of voting a woman into high executive office this year. If McCain really wanted to go after independents and Clintonites willing to abandon party for gender, he would have picked someone more ideologically palatable. Palin is anti-choice, pro-gun, pro-drilling, and even anti-polar bear. Palin complicates things, more than anything else — the rural folk in swing states might like Palin, the conservative base will certainly like Palin, and Palin can claim some change mojo based on the reform platform that propelled her to win the Alaska governorship in 2006 in the first place.

But I predict that Palin will be savaged in the upcoming vetting process — because apparently, McCain never vetted her himself. There’s a savory scandal involving abuse of power delightfully named Wootengate, and an angered former state employee at the height of it who is talking a lot. The decision on whether to press charges may come mere days before the election. There are also comments she’s made in which she is unclear on foreign policy or even what the VP does. There’s a really bizarre allegation that’s just become quasi-reliable (through being posted on Daily Kos) opining that her infant son is actually her teenage daughter’s illegitimate son.

The most staggering thing about her appointment is how little McCain actually knows her. The first time he met her was several months ago at a National Governor’s Conference. The second time he met her, if the VP search stories are to be believed, is the Sunday before the DNC, when McCain — looking to announce his pick right after the DNC concluded — flew her to Sedona to see the red rock formations and ask her to be second-in-command should they pull off victory. And the third time he met her was the morning she was flown from Alaska to Dayton to accept the nomination. Clearly, this is a selection being made with very little regard to what happens beyond Nov. 4. Witness McCain and crew speaking seriously about the courage Palin exhibited while on the Wasilla City Council, for instance, as evidence that she can be A Heartbeat Away, and you’re witnessing a lie they hope will be made true (or at least plausible) through the act of repetition.

The most telling thing about us, in the short term, is the jokes. When completely flummoxed, we try to laugh — either by Twittering “Little Known Facts about Sarah Palin,” which are in the vein of the Chuck Norris Facts and meant to make Palin an enigmatic mystery, albeit without Norris’s redneck panache … or through various GILF and VPILF jokes, which are meant to express appreciation for her beauty but really just make the joketellers seem like sexist jerks.

It’s not like Palin’s not a promising young politician — she’s like Obama in ways, in that she’s got a compelling personal story and positions her politics effectively from a not-business-as-usual perspective. But to jump on the national scene now, in this unexpected way, means the learning about and falling in love process we had over the long primary season with Obama won’t happen with Palin.

She’s here, now, surprise, ready to jump into a campaign that’s already full-speed and already staring at the harshest media glare she may ever faced.

Yep, this is way more fun than McCain-Pawlenty.