Now Here's A Unity Ticket Fer Ya

I have snoozed through all of the vice president talk -- as in who should be the running mates for Barack Obama and John McCain -- because it's much too early to get serious about that stuff. But then I had an epiphany, at least as far as the presumptive Democratic nominee is concerned:

Charles Timothy "Chuck" Hagel.

Inviting the retiring Nebraska Republican onto the ticket works every which way but one.

He is the consummate straight talker, a hero from the same war as McCain but share's Obama's views on same, ditto on civil liberties and immigration reform and a host of other issues, has beaucoup foreign policy experience and balances the ticket with his prairie populist Nebraska roots.

The one downside?

Hagel likes to wear costumes to work on Halloween, typically masquerading as colleagues (like Joe Biden in the photo above), and how could we live with a veep like that after Cheney and Gore?