Why Vetting Is Important

Apparently, John McCain only met Sarah Palin once before picking her as his VP. Maybe he should have met her a few more times, to make sure she wouldn't detonate his presidential ambitions.

Because here is what we've already learned today:

One month ago, she said "As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I'm used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration."

Her husband works for British Petroleum, part of "Big Oil".

She has supported mining projects that threaten fishing and caribou.

She doesn't want polar bears protected as an endangered species.

She is an anti-choice extremist, opposing abortion even in cases of rape or incest.

As recently as 1999, she was a Pat Buchanan fan. For those of you who don't know, Pat Buchanan ran as an anti-semitic, homophobic, racist, sexist hard right culture warrior during the 1990s.

She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools.

She has almost zero knowledge of the situation in Iraq.

More tidbits:

She supports drilling in ANWR.

She racked up $20 million in debt during her time as mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, which is a whopping $3000/person!

She vetoed clean coal and wind power projects in her state

She considered censoring library books while mayor.

She accepted money from Alaskan crooks Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young.

She is also currently embroiled in a scandal over the firing of Alaska's public safety director.

Why McCain would pick somebody who is currently under investigation is beyond me. This pick is a straight-up disaster.

If she were the most qualified woman for the job and just happened to be anti-choice, I would be more worried. But her terrible record on choice combined with her abysmal experience makes her almost laughable.

Andrew Sullivan:

Yes, we knew McCain had an ego. We never quite appreciated how vast it was. Yes, Obama is inexperienced in foreign policy. But at least he has thought seriously about it. Do you really believe that Sarah Palin understands the distinctions between Shia and Sunni, has an opinion about the future of Pakistan, has a view of how to exploit rifts within Tehran's leadership, knows about the tricky task of securing loose nuclear weapons? Does anyone even know if she has ever expressed a view on these matters? Here's a bleg: can anyone direct me to any statement she has ever made about foreign policy?

The biggest secret of the Bush administration is that they were never serious about national security. Serious leaders do not fabricate intelligence through torture methods borrowed from the Communist Chinese. Serious leaders do not invade foreign countries on dubious intelligence with no plan for an occupation. Serious leaders do not try to manipulate detainee policy for electroal purposes. Serious leaders do not engage in moronic talk of victory or surrender five years after removing a regime.

And now we know something about McCain's promise: he takes all this even less seriously than Bush.

TNR:

No doubt Michelle is right that the Obama-Biden team will have to be careful attacking Palin's frighteningly thin resume and tenuous grasp of foreign policy. But surely a campaign that has been charged with being too naïve to manage rogue state dictators can have a bit of fun with the idea that a one-time Miss Congeniality could effectively face down Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Kim Jong Il. Surely, Obama's "eight is enough" quip ought to apply not only to President Bush's economic and foreign policy travesties, but to the elevation of mediocrity that has characterized his appointment of Michael Brown to FEMA and his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. And surely we can agree that if the McCain campaign was desperate to transparently court voters put off by Hillary Clinton's loss, there is no dearth of women with far greater intellectual, executive, and political abilities--abilities that would allow them to assume the presidency in a heartbeat.

Ann Friedman:

It's clear that Republicans believe that what made Hillary Clinton such a good candidate was her gender, not her political experience or positions on the issues. And McCain's decision to pick Palin shows he took this message to heart and chose to add her to the ticket primarily because of her gender. In so doing, McCain has turned the idea of the first woman in the White House from a true moment of change to an empty pander.

Why is this a pander? Because Palin is not a woman who has a record of representing women's interests. She is beloved by extremely right-wing conservatives for her anti-choice record (fittingly, she's a member of the faux-feminist anti-choice group Feminists for Life). Palin supports federal anti-gay marriage legislation. She believes schools should teach creationism. Alaska is currently considering spending more on abstinence-only sex education. And when it comes to a slew of other issues of importance to women, such as equal pay, she's not on the record.

Ezra Klein:

You've got CNN anchors arguing with the campaign from the position that Palin is unqualified. You've got them replaying McCain standing in front of the camera and gravely saying that his top criteria for a VP would be "finding the person most qualified to step in and assume the presidency." Read that quote: "Most qualified." You can argue a lot of things about Palin, but no one can suggest she's literally the "most qualified" running mate McCain could have chose. You can't even argue she's in the top 25.

This is not going well for them. The base may be happy, but the coverage here is reminiscent of nothing so much as the reception that greeted Harriet Miers.

BooMan lists eight female Republican women with much more experience than Sarah Palin.

Josh Marshall:

At TPMMuckraker we've been on the Palin/Trooper-gate story for a while. And we've just reported that the investigation by the state legislature is scheduled to report its findings in the first couple days of November.

This is a perilous story for Palin and McCain. I flagged some of the details earlier in the day. But this is the kind of story, the kind of investigation, where it is highly unlikely that Palin hasn't made public false statements about her involvement in what happened.

This VP pick has the potential to destroy any chance McCain had at the presidency. Many conservatives are privately wondering why he didn't go with Tim Pawlenty, who is also anti-choice but has much more real world experience.

But when your campaign is panicked and your candidate is a crazy motherfucker like John McCain, this is what you get.