Some conservatives will never "get it." The New York Times prints a front-page story, essentially summarizing information that's been around for quite some time (even before Sen. John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate) on the Alaska governor's Troopergate problem, and the Weekly Standard calls it a "hit piece."

This is paranoia of unprecedented proportions—so steep that they ought to change the name of the mag/rag to The Weakly Standard.

Don't believe me—read it for yourself:

The Republican right, in all its glory, is going bonkers over a Newsweek cover with what some call a highly unflattering picture of their fearless leader, Gov. Sarah Palin.

Despite countless magazine pictures and covers with similarly unflattering pix of Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama (and his wife, Michelle), this one, they whine, shows too many wrinkles and too much unsightly facial hair and was taken from too close an angle. Apparently you've got to see one in person to get the full effect.

Meanwhile, Reuters ran some pictures of Palin that truly are tasteless and deserve more attention than the volumes of blogosphere venom spewed on the Newsweek cover. Taken through Palin's legs and from behind her, they make it appear that male members of the audience are peering right up her skirt. Now that's deserving of conservative alarm.

Don't take my word for it—take a look for yourself.

Meanwhile, a gadfly president of a local chapter of the National Organization for Women endorsed Palin this week at a rally in California. Shelly Mandell even said, in reference to Palin, "This is what a feminist looks like."

Let's not go there. Palin has called herself a feminist (in her now infamous interview with CBS's Katie Couric), and every American gets to choose his or her own labels, no matter how inappropriate they may be. Feminist is not the first word I would link with Palin. Lipstick and pit bull are much higher up on the list.

Robert, my colleague here at Thomas Jefferson Street, wrote today that Barack Obama has the race sewn up. In my heart of hearts, boss, I've been saying essentially the same thing for a week now. Personally, I agree it sure looks like it's over.

But professionally, I am duty-bound to add there are several game-changer scenarios that still might occur to create a McCain win—none of them good but all of them possible.

I'd like to respectfully respond to my colleague Morgan, who wrote last week, "The buzz is that John McCain had captured the support of white women because of Sarah Palin. But here's the rub: White women haven't behaved any differently from the general population. They haven't been swinging as wildly as my colleague Bonnie and many others have suggested."

Sorry,  "sistah," but the facts as relayed by Politico.com are in stark contrast to the claim that white women were never wooed to the McCain ticket by Sarah Palin's presence.

They were indeed:

Last night's debate was hardly the game-changer that John McCain so desperately needs and that I discussed in this space earlier. His performance improved over the first debate but not enough to woo the considerable number of supporters from Barack Obama's camp that he would need to turn around his meltdown in the polls.

From where I sit, there are only two possible game-changing scenarios that could help McCain retake the support he needs to win the election less than four weeks from now. One would be the failure of young voters to turn out, coupled with white voters lying to pollsters (telling them they will vote for Obama but, when they get into the polling booth, voting for McCain). The other would be a huge international terrorist event or near event to divert attention from America's economic woes. But as each day passes and investors get increasingly spooked, the less likely it becomes that Americans will be diverted from the economy, stupid (to quote the famous Clinton campaign saying).

Of course, it's not over until it is over. And game-changers do happen at the last minute. But this ping-pong match of a presidential race seems every day to be morphing more and more into a fait accompli.

I've been doing 180s this whole election season, bouncing from poll to contradictory poll and changing my assessment of which candidate was going to win the White House. I've been wrong every time so far. Still, I would like to point out that my blog entry of last week was way ahead of the media crowd about McCain's current meltdown.

At this late date, I cannot see a way out for McCain-Palin.

When I see headlines such as these, I do not know whether to laugh, cry, scream, or fire off a letter to the editor. (Whoops—writing daily letters to my editor, Robert Schlesinger, is my job. Oh well. Back to my main point.) It's so typical of mainstream media to report the news but leave in the shadows the reasons behind headlines in deference to our old friend, political correctness.

Today's example: "A quarter of world's mammals face extinction, survey finds."