By attacking the former governor of a state smaller by population than Westchester County, a woman whose chances of being the next president are about the same as Nancy Pelosi’s, Democrats aren’t wasting their time at all. They are distracting conservatives and changing the subject.

Conservatives should be, but aren’t, completely focused on one idea. It’s liberalism, stupid.

Last week, Obama looked exceptionally weak, naive and disingenuous, even for him: He got a knee in the face when he bowed to China; he admitted his promise to close Gitmo by January was the bloviation conservatives have always said it was; his attorney general invited terrorists to bring their Cirque du Jihad to New York so they can put the US national security apparatus on trial (and added that Obama wasn’t even part of the decision); the claims about stimulus-provided jobs turned out to involve lots of fictitious work in nonexistent congressional districts; a second Democratic senator threatened to help filibuster the health bill; and Afghanistan and Iran grew more dire as each hour brought the president inching ever closer to thinking about meeting to discuss the possibility of suggesting the next half-hearted response.

So what preoccupied the nation? Bill Belichick’s 4th and two call. And the book tour of an unemployed former governor of a very small state.