"Country First" or "Campaign First?"

So the McCain camp has said that its vetting of Palin was thorough and that any further questions on its process are off limits. And, they demand, back off of Sarah Palin. The country loves her. All of the negativity surrounding her candidacy is apparently being manufactured by the hostile left-wing media.

Well, it comes out today that the National Enquirer prompted Palin's press statement about her daughter's pregnancy--it seems that their staff knew a lot more about what was going on up in Alaska than McCain's did--and there surely is a lot more to follow. How much of it will surprise McCain? Because this comes out on the heels of a series of emerging, embarrassing details about how woefully inadequate the vetting process was. Both McCain camp statements and anecdotal evidence show that there was no rigorous check into her background or her political record.

Reporters who have actually traveled up to Alaska have discovered that they are breaking new ground in many cases. They are the first ones talking to people who know Sarah Palin (the current mayor of Wasilla, AK, for example.). They are the first ones to sift through some of her official records and the newspapers that covered her years as mayor. And as they sift, they are finding some rewarding nuggets. There is a constant stream of Palin news--and none of it good.

Leaving aside the family issues, fake pregnancy rumors, troopergate, dairygate, etc., it seems that a serious problem for McCain (if the campaign ever does return to the issues) is that her "reformer" credentials are seriously tarnished. I was dumbfounded to hear her repeat her claim that she said "thanks, but no thanks" to the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" again tonight in her speech. The record on this is quite clear--she enthusiastically supported the project before the Federal government failed to come up with additional funds for it, which prompted her sudden reversal. Read the press release she sent out. There is nothing "reformer" about it. To her it was strictly a funding issue. Under her as Governor, Alaska continues to receive the highest per capita amount of earmark spending. And this is nothing new--her political career has been all about the earmarks--and cozying up to indicted Sen. Ted Stevens when it suited her purposes. She was the first Wasilla mayor to be an earmark crusader--a crusader in favor of getting as much pork for her town as she possibly could. A search of earmarks that McCain published in his pork lists includes several items personally proposed by Palin herself while mayor of Wasilla. This is a pretty serious disconnect with McCain, and one that they probably had not fully explored.

Indeed, it appears that the McCain folks did not explore much, limiting their version of the vetting process to a search of public records available on the internet. That's not vetting--that's called googling. Of course, they also asked her some very specific, hard-hitting questions and trusted that she would be completely open and honest about herself. No problem there, I'm sure.

McCain's personal contact with her was--by his campaign's own account--admittedly very limited. Meeting her briefly at a conference and then having a single face-to-face meeting with her before declaring her to be his "soul-mate." Bush has famously claimed to have looked into Putin's eyes and to have gotten a sense of his soul. Maybe this is a special gift that Republicans have. Perhaps not--look at how well that relationship is turning out.

The rush to vet appears to be a wholly political decision, a last minute game-changer, trying to gain traction to stem a wholesale stampede to the Democratic Party. It was easy to confirm her most important quality to the McCain camp--she's clearly a woman. Her appeal to the base was pretty easy to determine as well, and apparently that's all that it took to seal the deal.

She is placed on the Republican ticket as a Vice Presidential candidate without knowing what her positions are on major issues (hint: on foreign policy, she has none, unless you count her statement that the war in Iraq is "a task that is from God."). Of course, I'm sure that they saw her lack of positions--indeed her lack of inquisitiveness--on foreign policy to be a strength in one sense. There are few past public statements or positions that could come out opposed to any of McCain's positions. So in that regard, she is an empty vessel waiting to be filled with McCain's talking points. They might get away with it in the short run-up to the election, but should the worst happen and they are elected, what role can she play that helps this country if she has no experience--or even any interest--in foreign policy?

On domestic issues, what are her economic plans to help put Americans back to work? How will she contribute to the debates about health care and the housing crisis? She probably knows a little bit about which policies would help put "Alaska First," but we need a lot more than that at the national level.

It is utterly inconceivable that McCain can look at her as someone who could help him govern the country--even after they have explained to her what exactly it is that the V.P. does. His cavalier treament of the vetting process makes it clear that McCain does not view the Vice Presidency as an important office (although Dick Cheney would probably disagree.). If the President stays healthy and doesn't do too much foreign travel, he or she can marginalize the role of the V.P. This is what McCain must envision his administration to look like. However, the rest of us have a different view. If something were to happen to a President McCain, the Vice President would have to be ready to lead. Not giving the country a qualified Vice President is a leadership failure of the highest magnitude.

Karl Rove, of all people, has stated that Palin is "not a governing decision but a campaign decision." But she is not just a pander, a campaign ploy, or a "hail mary pass." She is a grossly unqualified and deeply flawed candidate that McCain has personally selected to hold an office a heartbeat away from the Presidency. McCain has made a most reckless gamble and thoroughly disgraced himself in the process. The lack of vetting by his staff compounds his failure in judgment, and he is reaping the whirlwind that is Sarah Palin.

"Country First?" I don't think so. How about "Campaign First."