Remember the "excitement" around Al Gore's announcement of his vice presidential nominee Joe "only in America" Lieberman?

Lieberman was such a dud he ended up making Gore look exciting by contrast. Since the 2000 election he has been hell-bent on selling out progressives and Democrats, embracing George W. Bush, and making himself such a darling of the right he has a speaking spot at the upcoming Republican convention. The McCain campaign even has him on the short list for another V.P. run--this time for the Republicans. Hard to believe they'd put us through "Only in America," the Sequel, though. After all, they do want to win.

One thing you can count on--whomever the candidates choose—the hype will far exceed the actual significance of the V.P. selection.

The names that are bouncing around are mostly staid, unexciting Washington types. The McCain campaign frightened the base by floating Tom Ridge, who is not 100 percent anti-abortion and therefore risks moving his party too close to the American mainstream. More likely McCain will not want to alienate the fringe who are already on edge about his "maverick" candidacy--note his embarrassing efforts to cozy up to the same crazy preachers he once denounced as "agents of intolerance." Mitt Romney, despite his lousy Presidential campaign, is still a big contender.

As the Obama announcement draws near, there is a flurry of interest on Facebook, especially among the 100,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh.

Bayh, the DLCer on Obama's short list, is "a career legacy politician who fell hook, line, and sinker for the administration's case for a disastrous war and dragged much of our party with him," according to the 100,000 Strong page. The online effort to bounce Bayh for his pro-war and pro-FISA views has collected a lot of leftwing energy.

But Obama's other choices aren't that much better. Joe Biden, whose star is rising, also voted for the war. And his gaffe-prone record (remember when he praised Obama for being the first "clean, articulate" African American Presidential candidate?) is a liability. So is his history of plagiarism and law school transcript inflation.

Kathleen Sebelius, the governor of Kansas who is seen as a sop to the fictional feminists-so-mad-about-Hillary-they'll-vote-for-McCain contingent, produced a response to Bush's State of the Union speech that became late night comedy fodder for its sheer mindnumbing dullness.

Tim Kaine has the young, rock-star quality that reinforces Obama's strengths, the same way Clinton and Gore projected an aura of youth and energy. But those qualities seem less appealing with the news focused on the Russia-Georgia war, the nagging "celebrity" ads tearing down Obama for his supposedly vacuous pop appeal, and the Republican talking point that Obama-Kaine would be "the most inexperienced ticket in the history of the world." Kaine is also anti-abortion, and his ability to deliver Virginia, like Sebelius in Kansas, is doubtful.

Among the 100,000 Strong against the dispiriting Evan Bayh there are a lot of pro-Wes Clark bloggers. Clark would certainly add military and foreign policy heft. Unlike Jim Webb, another veteran short-lister, he is not a total loose cannon. He was hammered by Republicans for daring to suggest on TV that being shot down in a fighter plane didn't qualify McCain to be President. But that sort of strong attack might help Obama, who has only recently begun to respond to the pounding he's taken from McCain lately in negative ads and speeches questioning his patriotism, liberalism, arrogance, and willingness to deliberately "lose" the war in Iraq. As an attack dog Clark would be a logical choice.

The best choices are off the table, though. Russ Feingold, the only bold opponent of Bush Administration shredding of the Constitution in the Senate, beginning with his lone vote against the Patriot Act, is on nobody's short list, even though he is from a state the Dems need to carry, he co-authored campaign finance reform with McCain, and he stood as strong as Obama against the Iraq War.

The campaigns are so worried about any potential harm to the candidates' images, they are quick to boot any potential running mate who might give the other side an issue to attack. The butt-covering impulse is how the Democrats ended up with the insufferable Joe Lieberman. He was a reaction against Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. (Lieberman is such a knee-jerk moral scold, he pushed to the front of the line to denounce Clinton on the floor of the Senate). We all know how that turned out.

Sometimes the safe choice looks downright crazy in retrospect.