Palin's "My Fair Lady" Moment

With a phalanx of Henry Higginses and Col. Pickerings, Sarah Palin is being prepped for her Eliza Doolittle debut at the Republican equivalent of the Embassy Ball tonight, and it would take a heart of stone to see the drama only in political terms.

But this movie will be shown, not on TCM, but all the TV networks, and, as new details emerge about Gov. Palin's past, we find there is much more at stake than whether or not the flower girl passes muster in a world of self-satisfied snobs and poseurs.

In past life, Eliza was selling violets but now we learn that Mayor Sarah was ideologically firing town officials and trying to ban books in the library with what neighbors describe as "a polarizing single-mindedness."

Last night, the Republican Convention gave us Fred Thompson narrating a combined remake of "Sergeant York," "Patton" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy," and no doubt tonight's movie will be even more riveting. Who could be rooting against the upward mobility of a savvy, spunky young woman in the world of political privilege and posturing?

But before we enjoy the catharsis of Eliza flinging slippers at Henry Higgins, we might want to keep in mind how that climactic scene would play in the Oval Office where something more substantial than slippers might be the nearest objects at hand.