Let the Blame Game Begin
22 October 2008 4:43 pm by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
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How John McCain picked Sarah Palin is becoming clear, especially with the latest must read hitting. McCain’s defense of it is equally remarkable given how it was done. No wonder he’s spinning such a yarn.
In an interview with Don Imus, John McCain said about Sarah Palin, “I
think she’s the most qualified of anyone recently who has run for vice president
to tell you the truth…”
Really? Whatever you say about Dick Cheney, the one thing you cannot say is
that he wasn’t qualified. Same goes for Al Gore. What about George H.W. Bush.
McCain is just wrong.
But if you really want to evaluate how John McCain picked Palin, this New York Times Magazine story on the McCain-Palin campaign really
says it all:
After that first brief meeting, Davis remained in discreet but frequent contact
with Palin and her staff — gathering tapes of speeches and interviews,
as he was doing with all potential vice-presidential candidates. One tape
in particular struck Davis as arresting: an interview with Palin and Gov.
Janet Napolitano, the Arizona Democrat, on “The Charlie Rose Show”
that was shown in October 2007. Reviewing the tape, it didn’t concern
Davis that Palin seemed out of her depth on health-care issues or that, when
asked to name her favorite candidate among the Republican field, she said,
“I’m undecided.” What he liked was how she stuck to her
pet issues — energy independence and ethics reform — and thereby
refused to let Rose manage the interview. This was the case throughout all
of the Palin footage. Consistency. Confidence. And . . . well, look at her.
A friend had said to Davis: “The way you pick a vice president is, you
get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that
frame. You look at who fits that frame best — that’s your V. P.”Schmidt, to whom Davis quietly supplied the Palin footage, agreed. Neither
man apparently saw her lack of familiarity with major national or international
issues as a serious liability. Instead, well before McCain made his selection,
his chief strategist and his campaign manager both concluded that Sarah Palin
would be the most dynamic pick. … read on
All she needed was the clothes.
It also crystallizes why Palin has fallen on her face with Katie Couric, lending
herself to such humiliation on SNL, The Daily Show and beyond. Why conservative women and men deride the
choice of Sarah Palin. Why polls show her approval ratings cratering, with Palin a bigger drag on McCain than Bush.
In the end, the men around McCain never thought one moment about her intellect
or if she was qualified for the job. They picked her based on how she looked
in a Time magazine frame. The trouble is that McCain went along with it, evidently never
asking a single question about his own choice. Not caring what it meant to have a number
two who was beautiful, cut a good image in a tight skirt, but never had her
depth of knowledge questioned to see if she met the policy gravitas test.
If McCain is truly uncomfortable with Sarah Palin, as Chuck Todd implied today, it’s his own fault. That she’s dragging him down is poetic justice.
