Is attack dog's bite even worse than her bark?

SARAH PALIN | With acid sarcasm, she's downright mean, relentless in reinforcing black/white divide

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A day after Sarah Palin's big night, I was standing outside the hotel when I witnessed the impact of her barbed speech at the Republican convention.

A waitress who had hours earlier cheerfully served me breakfast came through the rear door and ran up to the first woman she saw wearing a McCain/Palin pin and gushed.

"It was wonderful," she exclaimed. "I got so excited I had to put down my beer."

Given the way this election is heading, McCain risks being overshadowed by his running mate.

And that would be a bad thing.

I may not agree with the Republican nominee's policies, but I've never doubted for one minute that he is an honorable man.

After hearing Palin speak, I'm afraid she's going to take McCain someplace he doesn't really want to go.

During her debut, Palin electrified the Republicans, but she also shook up every registered voter in the 'hood.

Besides mocking the historic breakthrough of Barack Obama emerging as the Democrats' nominee, Palin was relentless in her use of language that reinforces divisions among black and white voters -- particularly pitting small-town people against the rest of us.

That's unfortunate, especially since McCain has tried to reach out to black leadership despite Obama's solid hold on the black vote.

McCain spoke at the conventions of the NAACP and the National Urban League.

His biggest failure has been not putting together an organized outreach throughout his campaign.

The result of that failure was evident in the stunning lack of diversity the nation witnessed as TV cameras panned the crowds.

So you can imagine what black viewers thought as they listened to Palin's acid sarcasm. Frankly, after watching her speak, it's easy to believe that she wouldn't hesitate to use her political power to punish her enemies.

Gov. Palin is under investigation in Alaska for allegedly trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from his job when he and her sister were going through an ugly divorce.

It is scary that a woman who hails from a small town in Alaska felt so at home on the national stage being downright mean.

And for some of us, Palin reinforces every stereotype, rightly or wrongly, of what we think white people think in those small towns.

"We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity and dignity," she said.

Does that mean people who grew up in urban Americas are less honest, less sincere and have less dignity?

"They love their country, in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America," Palin said.

Does that mean the rest of us are unpatriotic?

Although a spokesman for McCain told me that Palin's comments about McCain being the "kind of fellow whose name you will find on war memorials in small towns," was not a put-down of Obama's name, given Palin's rapid-fire attack, I can see why some people took it that way.

That's the problem with pit bulls.