This week I attended the U.S. Open and watched the Republican Convention. Guess which had more spin? Can McCain's pedestrian stump speech Thursday night convince voters that a Bush look-alike for seven years is the change agent? Only in America.

Our panel below performs the Emperor-Has-No-Clothes assignment of saying what should be obvious but what Republicans are hoping Americans don't see. Look at how experienced she is! Who’s W?

One way to compare the Republican Convention and our American reality is to list their dozen top hypocrises. Admittedly, politics is often the art of squaring circles and finessing inconsistencies. But as commentators Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy accidentally told us, the level of BS and cynicism in the Twin Cities was mountainous:

*John McCain said that he doesn’t work for the special interests. Ok, but they sure work for him, given the lobbyists who run and give to his campaign.

*John McCain repeatedly told us that he was a man of honor and principle, but what was the principle when he belittled then hugged Bush, belittled then hugged the religious right, belittled then hugged tax cuts for billionaires and oil firms, condemned and then allowed torture?

Obama said he wouldn’t question McCain’s motives or patriotism, but I can: a man who said that Islamic terrorism is the #1 issue of our time has put political tactics above country and constitution by choosing a complete rookie as his VP nominee. Objectively, when you combine Dan Quayle and Chauncey Gardiner, you get Sarah Palin.

Two questions for Senator McCain: do you really think that Sarah Palin is the best Republican in the country to succeed you as president should you be unable to serve – or the best 10, or even the best 100? And does a Palin-Putin summit on nuclear arms worry you at all?

Our A List panel on 7 Days of Bob Shrum, John Podesta and Ron Reagan are underwhelmed by the choice of someone so underqualified. But they also tactically suggest that Democrats hold their fire and instead insist that the media hold her accountable for performing at a presidential level in the campaign so she doesn’t succeed by beating very low expectations, as W did in 2000.

As JFK's closest advisor for 11 years and then the first to prominently yoke Kennedy and Obama, Ted Sorensen's views are politically telling this month in our approach to Denver. But John Edwards' humiliating sex scandal is not for two reasons: it's a failing of person, not party, and John McCain did the same thing -- viz. have an affair while his wife was ailing.

This is not to say that the misconduct of both Johns should be disqualifying for president. If that were true -- and based on the best scholarship -- we wouldn't have had an FDR, IKE, JFK, LBJ or Clinton and we'd today be lionizing Nixon and W as top tier presidents. I recall once debating a religious conservative. Cal Thomas, on a talk show during the Clinton kerfuffle. "What could be worse than lying to your wife?", he said. "Nuclear war" was my reply. That is, looking back, who would we rather have had navigating the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world risked extinction -- a frisky Kennedy or a chaste Bush 43?

McCain has admitted to his misconduct. It hasn't come up in this contest and shouldn't. It should not be THE factor determining someone's vote but rather possibly a factor for those who choose to focus on bad behavior 30 years ago rather than his capacity to be president today.

Hear that, Republican mudslingers? Let us in this context urge rabid family-values Republicans and Atwater-Rove political operatives to stop their moralistic slandering when the shoe's on the other foot. Recall how most of those Hill Republicans hounding Bill Clinton over Monica Lewinsky in 1999-2000 had their own affairs -- Gingrich, Livingston, Hyde. Recall how so many anti-gay conservatives came out of closet later or were throw out.