Disclosures on Palin Raise Questions on Vetting Process
The MSM appear to have, at last, caught on to the thing that the blogs have been saying for days; John McCain's vetting of Sarah Palin appears to have been totally shoddy, if not completely non-existent.
This isn't actually about Sarah Palin, as astonishingly unfit to be Commander in Chief as I believe her to be, this is about John McCain. This is about a guy who claims to be all about "Country First" but who then throws into the VP position someone who he clearly hasn't properly vetted. And that's because he never wanted her on the ticket to begin with. He was forced to include her on the ticket to appease the theocon nutters.On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.
Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.
Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice.
It transpires that McCain wanted Lieberman or Ridge, but was told that both of these men were opposed by the religious right of the party and that all Hell would break loose if he appointed either of them.
As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.And, because he considered her so late, there was almost no vetting of this woman at all. And I don't say that simply because I don't believe he knew about the pregnancy, I say that because that is where the facts on the ground lead you.
With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later.
On Saturday, a Democrat tasked with opposition research contacted the Huffington Post with this piece of information: as of this weekend, the McCain campaign had not gone through old newspaper articles from the Valley Frontiersman, Palin's hometown newspaper.What does it say about McCain's judgement that he would take a risk like this? How does this man contrast with Barack Obama who has been painstakingly careful over the past eighteen months to make his case, first in his battle with the most powerful family in the Democratic movement, and more recently in his contest with John McCain?
How does he know? The paper's (massive) archives are not online. And when he went to research past content, he was told he was the first to inquire.
"No one else had requested access before," said the source. "It's unbelievable. We were the only people to do that, which means the McCain camp didn't."
The notion that Obama would ever make such a reckless move is unthinkable.
And yet here we have McCain trying to push forward a candidate that even Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan can't be bothered trying to defend....
...Until Buchanan discovers that she is actually McCain's choice, when he changes his mind entirely.
But I think Buchanan's first point was more succinct. Obama proved himself over his eighteen month battle with Hillary. During that gruelling battle we all learned who he was and how he ticked.
Sarah Palin it turns out, is not only unknown to all of us, she's virtually an unknown to the man who put her on the ticket.
That's disgraceful and it's reckless. I'm sorry, I've said it a dozen times, but I mean it: This one decision proves that McCain is unfit to be Commander in Chief.
Imagine this level of recklessness being employed in foreign policy? It's unthinkable.
And the news of how this decision was reached should finally end the ridiculous notion that McCain is a "maverick". This man is no "maverick". Sarah Palin is only on the ticket because he utterly caved in to the religious right. The levels McCain will stoop to, the amount of principles he will overturn, the number of U-turns he will make, simply to get his hands on the presidency, appears to be limitless.
UPDATE:
I am pleased to note that most people's reaction appears to be similar to mine. People appear to be genuinely shocked at his recklessness.
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