Senator John McCain has made a big deal about putting "country first". In fact, its the theme of the upcoming GOP convention.
So I would ask Senator McCain - how is choosing Governor Sarah Palin as your running mate putting country first?
As is pointed out in unwilledatom's reccomended diary, here, Karl Rove tried to poison the well for Governor Tim Kaine as Senator Obama's VP choice, but in doing so he inadvertently opened up McCain to criticism:
I think he's going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice," Rove said. "He's going to view this through the prism of a candidate, not through the prism of president....He's not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities of president.
In this light, how can one not look at McCain's pick and think that he was only thinking at politics. I won't give them the traffic, but a look at National Review Online shows that the GOP base is eating this pick up - Palin is real, blue collar, all American they say. Not one comment provides any details on how Governor Palin can meet the "responsibilities of president."
So I ask Senator McCain again – how is this choice putting country first?
All summer we have been subjected to Senator McCain’s claims that Senator Obama is too inexperienced to be president. And then McCain chooses an even less experienced running mate? This just proves that the McCain attack was never serious, that he never really believed it. If he did, how could he select Governor Palin? She infamously recently said she didn’t even know what the vice president did every day!
So I ask Senator McCain again – how is this choice putting country first?
Matt Ygelsias provides a clip of Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell dicsussing how little John McCain knows about Palin. They have only barely met, many mcCain staffers have never met her. Supporters are as clueless as I am about her. As Matt says:
"The Palin choice was a savvy news cycle gambit on one of the few days of the campaign in which VP picks make a difference. If all you care about is "winning" the news cycle, then I guess you don’t need to know the person at all. If you care about governing . . . ."
So I would ask Senator McCain again - how is this putting country first?