We didn't vet her and neither should you.

Even old friends are starting to see through the McCain camps tactic of smearing the press for daring to vet Sarah Palin more carefully than he did. And it's coming now from people who used to be true believers.

Here's Joe Klein:

So what's going on here? Two things. McCain is just plain angry at us. By the evidence presented in the utterly revealing Time interview, he's ballistic. This is a politician who needs to see himself as the man on the white horse, boldly traversing a muddy field...any intimations that he's gotten muddied in the process, or has decided to throw mud, are intolerable.

The second thing is more insidious: Steve Schmidt has decided, for tactical reasons, to slime the press. He wants the public to believe that there is an unfair--sexist (you gotta love it)--personal assault going on against Palin and her family. This is a smokescreen, intended to divert attention from the very real and responsible vetting that is taking place in the media--about the substance of Palin's record as mayor and governor.

[...]

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

The McCain campaign are angry because the press are refusing to accept his notion that Sarah Palin is qualified to be Vice President and are furious that this disgraceful decision is threatening to overturn his entire campaign.

This is all on his own head as he was the one who decided - on what appears to have been a whim - that this hockey mom could fill Dick Cheney's shoes.

She might have delivered her speech to the convention quite well, but it doesn't hide the fact that her foreign policy experience is next to nil.

McCain has got things his own way regarding the press for a very long time, but his most recent mistake is one that even they couldn't give him a pass on. He has reacted with outrage, but it's an outrage that makes him look, frankly, ridiculous and it does stir the memories of that famed temper of his that worries some enough to state that this man should never be allowed anywhere near the top job.

McCain's reaction has been to start refusing to talk to the press.

Those of us who have criticized the candidate--and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past--have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year. But things have gotten much worse in recent days: there was McCain's rude, bizarre interview with Time Magazine last week. Yesterday, McCain refused to an interview with Larry King, for God's sake, because Campbell Brown had been caught in the commission of journalism on CNN the night before, asking McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds what decisions Sarah Palin had made as commander-in-chief of the Alaska national guard.

As Klein says in recent days it's getting worse as the appointment of Palin - and the inevitable reaction to it - appears to have caught McCain on the hop. He didn't see this coming.

It was arrogance which led him to this blind spot, and it is arrogance which is fuelling his outbursts regarding the press reaction. He had hoped this would all fade away within a few days, he no doubt hopes even now that her speech will have made the questions fade, but it won't.

Candidates get vetted, hopefully by the campaign, but always by the press. If McCain's angry now there's a danger he'll blow completely before this is all over. People have a right to know who this woman is and whether or not she is competent enough to lead the free world before they decide whether or not to place her a 72 year old heartbeat from the presidency.

McCain is just going to have to get used to that. After all, it was he who placed her there.

Click title for Klein's article.

Tags: McCain, Palin, Joe Klein, US election 2008, Schmidt, Obama