Sarah Palin and Princess Grace

The headline asks, "Could Palin Factor Save McCain?" and their story brings back memories of another Cinderella tale--how Grace Kelly came to rescue Prince Rainier of Monaco half a century ago.

In the New Yorker, Jane Mayer says of McCain and Palin: "By the time he announced her as his choice, the next day, he had spent less than three hours in her company."

Their whirlwind courtship duplicates how the movie star and the Prince got together over half a century ago and for some of the same reasons.

Monaco, a tiny country surrounding a casino in Monte Carlo, was in as much trouble then as the McCain campaign this summer, until Grace Kelly was briefly introduced to Rainier while shooting "To Catch a Thief" there.

Soon afterward, the Prince visited the Kelly family in Philadelphia and, after being alone with her for only a few hours, asked the movie star to marry him and she accepted.

Rainier's advisor was a priest named Father Tucker, and it turns out that the McCain-Palin union was brokered by a less spiritual team led by William Kristol and Dick Morris. The 21st century counterpart of the movie shoot was a fund-raising cruise of the Weekly Standard to Alaska last summer.

At a lunch in the governor's mansion, Kristol and other Neo-Cons were smitten. A few weeks later, a boatload from the National Review came to call and, after sharing salmon with Palin, had a similar reaction.

Morris, a Clinton confidante who fell out of favor after having a prostitute listen in on his phone calls to the president, wrote in the Washington Post, “I will always remember taking her aside and telling her that she might one day be tapped to be Vice-President, given her record and the shortage of female political talent in the Republican Party."

The rest is history, but Palin's story may turn out to be Princess Grace in reverse. The movie star gave up show business for high office but, after her SNL stint, Palin is being touted for a new career as an entertainer. The voters will help her decide next month.

Lost Causes on SNL

Sarah Palin, who has yet to Meet the Press or Face the Nation, showed up on Saturday Night Live tonight minutes before Oliver Stone rose from the audience to plug his lost cause, the movie, "W."

The juxtaposition was no more bizarre, or funnier, than Alec Baldwin mistaking Palin for Tina Fey, badmouthing her to her face and, when set straight, ogling the VP candidate and telling her, “You are way hotter in person.”.

There must be something profound to be said about all this confusion of reality and fantasy in today's world, but life hasn't been the same since Richard Nixon appeared on "Laugh-In" endlessly mouthing the show's punch line, "Sock it to me?"

McCain's Backward Media March

For a campaign in which he faces a quarter-of-a-century age gap with Barack Obama, John McCain has been busy searching for the media's Fountain of Youth, last night on SNL and with a forthcoming interview in Glamour.

Taking a leaf from his hero, Ronald Reagan, who was even older when running for reelection in 1984, McCain is making jokes about his age. In a presidential debate back then, the 73-year-old Reagan deadpanned about Walter Mondale: "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."

In a parody political ad on Saturday Night Live, McCain emoted, “Good evening, my fellow Americans. I ask you: what should we be looking for in our next president? Certainly, someone who is very, very, very old...I have the courage, the wisdom, the experience and most importantly, the oldness necessary."

He added that controlling government spending was about being able to look your children in the eye, “or in my case my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren and great-great-great grandchildren--the youngest of whom are nearing retirement.’’

Interviewed by Glamour, whose readers are young women under 35, McCain says he finds the website, ThingsYoungerMcCain.com., "hilarious." Told that Scrabble, the Golden Gate Bridge and area codes are on the list, he added, "Yes indeed. Not to mention the Internet and...maybe even color TV."

Technically, experimental color sets predate him, but not cable TV. More importantly, he is senior to the whole generation of Baby Boomers, who now make up the majority of older voters.

But that won't faze the potentially most ancient President ever to take office, who has been one of Jon Stewart's most frequent Daily Show guests. Next stop: Sesame Street.