What’s The Plural of Moose?

I don't know. Fred Thompson made an attempt at moose-related humor last night, but it only made me wince. The senior statesman and TV star, in the midst of stertorously barking out a truly dull attack-dog speech, extolled the virtues of social-conservative-approved, and scandal-tainted VP-pick Sarah Palin - she's a reformer! she's a maverick! - and then tried his hand at comedy to prove his point. It went like this: "I think I can say without fear of contradiction she's the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly dress a moose." I know this is part-humor, part-pander to those voters out there who require hunting skills in their President (as opposed to, say, foreign-policy skills or, hell, knowledge), and I get that, I do. I get that a pander is necessary because, bafflingly, a large swath of the electorate believes the ability to handle a gun in the presence of a pheasant is testament to a person's overall character. As someone who's gone shooting a few times when he was young, I can even somewhat understand the culture that thinks this way. But, what I don't get is going about sending a message about Sarah Palin's character in this way. It'd be one thing to say, "she knows how to handle a rifle," or, simply, "she knows how to hunt - I've seen the trophies on the walls." But, moose? Did he just say something about moose? That's just inherently ridiculous. Bullwinkle aside, when you start bringing up moose as corroboration of your belief that this person is qualified to be President, you are bordering on theatre of the absurd. Most of us already suspect that the choice of Palin was a serious error in judgment by McCain. When they start bringing up moose to defend themselves, I don't know, the jig's sort of already up, innit? UPDATE: ITT reader JM asks: "I'm supposed to be convinced because she knows how to kill and prepare a proud, impressive, beautiful, large mammal? The sort of animal her home state should be protecting? It just makes me sick."