Blame McCain For Palin
Andrew Sullivan points out something obvious that has been missed. McCain was the one who brought Sarah Palin into the spotlight – she owes all her recent success in enriching Sarah Palin to him. Has McCain apologized yet?
We knew that about a charlatan like Kristol and a nihilist like Rove. But what I didn’t fully come to terms with, until the Palin farce, was the full extent of John McCain’s recklessness and cynicism. This is worth keeping in mind through all this. The only reason we even know about Sarah Palin is John McCain.
He picked her so carelessly, and his thought process was so cynical, that he should stand in the dock of public opinion before Palin does. Her vanity led her to say yes to his crazy offer. But he gave her that chance. And in the end, she is his responsibility.
And that’s why in fact the pushback has been almost milquetoast. How do Steve Schmidt and John McCain reveal the truth about Palin when that truth only further proves their fantastic incompetence, nihilism and unseriousness with respect to government? And what’s truly telling about Washington is that a man like McCain, who perpetrated this nonsense and even now refuses to take an ounce of responsibility for it, is nonetheless invited on countless talk shows and treated like the hero he always was. And no one demands he account for this train-wreck outside his tested cant about Palin “exciting the base.”
If he had any sense of responsibility, he would resign. And if the Washington media had any sense of responsibility, it would never invite him on TV again without demanding he take responsibility for what he nearly did to the national security of this country. No one who put this person near the nuclear button should have a future in public life.
McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his VP says everything we need to know about his judgment. Either McCain made a decision without sufficient information or he made a cynical calculation. Neither one say good things about what kind of president McCain would have been.
Tags: John McCain, Sarah Palin
This is absolutely right — McCain pretty much lost whatever political judgment skills he had after the 2000 primary, I think. That race taught him that the “maverick” thing was valuable only on Sunday talk shows. He abandoned any pretense to political independence or even caring about governing the minute he picked Palin for VP. If the CW is true that your VP pick is your first Presidential decision, McCain failed pretty badly here.
But the media still loves him though!