James Wolcott (Vanity Fair) asks, Soulmate...or fuck buddy?

John McCain, using the touchy-feely language usually associated with Match.com ads, described his vice presidential pick Sarah Palin as “a partner and soul mate,” though to his credit he neglected to call her the wind beneath his sails and sigh, “She completes me.” But it doesn’t take a Sherlock to deduce from this video (courtesy of The Jed Report), which shows McCain Freudian-fiddling with his wedding ring as he glances sidelong at his running (soul)mate, that his unconscious longs to sack the Republican Party’s earthmother savior in the end zone, if I may borrow a football metaphor in honor of the upcoming NFL season.

This vignette, where the subtext reveals itself through obsessive reviewing as in a De Palma film (with Julie Andrews’ cool trill deployed as ironic counterpoint), is worryingly reminiscent of AMC’s Mad Men, where alpha male Don Draper, though married to a cool picture-perfect blonde desirous to please him, loosens his tie and undoes his shoe laces for one saucy brunette after another, risking everything for a randy bite of the forbidden apple.

Given Sarah Palin’s handiness with a hunting rifle, it would be tragic indeed for her to “mistake” Cindy McCain for a rampaging caribou on the campaign trail–it would give rise to all kinds of suspicions, perhaps plunging even Peggy Noonan into a crisis of faith.

Here’s the progression of Wolcott’s post: 1) Palin is the object of lust; 2) Alpha males can’t help it; 3) Palin is probably crazy (she deserves it); 4) “It was only a joke! Relax.”