It just dawned on me that John McCain is treating Sarah Palin like a modern day Eliza Dolittle - a crass, unpolished, but attractive woman who is plucked from obscurity to be the object of a bet. Henry Higgins wanted to prove he could transform a poor, crude flower seller from the streets of London into a high class member of the British upper class. He took her in, shielded her during her tutoring sessions, and waited until she was ready to present her to society. It took a long time but he succeeded. That, of course, was fiction put to music.
No matter how talented they are, however, John McCain and his campaign are not Henry Higgins. No matter how much they shield her, no matter how much training she gets, they won't transform her the way Professor Higgins transformed Eliza Dolittle. All Eliza Dolittle had to do was get rid of her accent and learn to talk and walk like a lady in a time when that was all that was expected of women. She didn't have to know the intricacies of foreign and domestic policy. The task of McCain was not to turn Sarah into a graceful and dignified ornament. His task was to turn her into a competent national leader. Had Henry Higgins tried to transform Ms. Dolittle into a British Lord, he could not have succeeded either.
