My old “colleague” Norman Ornstein said something very odd on public radio yesterday (I use quotation marks because Norm was (and is) a major scholar at AEI when I was a mere policy gnome). In a conversation about John Kerry’s potential veeps, Norm suggested that a very good pick might be….Donna Shalala, the current president of the University of Miami and former HHS Secretary in the Clinton White House. Now, I think Shalala’s sharp and all that, but what the hell is Norm thinking? We’re on the verge of a major culture war conflict in this presidential campaign and he thinks picking an aging feminist — who looks like an aging feminist — who is ferociously pro-choice and who is widely rumored to live an alternative lifestyle is the best move for a very liberal Senator from Massachusetts? I wouldn’t traffic in the rumor except for the fact that she was kinda-sorta outed by Andrew Sullivan in the New York Times a few years ago and there’s no doubt whatsoever that her orientation would come up again. Norm Ornstein knows a lot about politics, but I’ve got literally know idea what he could be thinking.