Because the GOP place such a low value on human life, they saw the Obama candidacy as a novelty, because, you know, he's half-black (shhhh! Don't tell anyone!) Therefore, he's just a flavor of the month, as kooky an idea as Jesse Ventura running for governor (except he won. Shhhh! Don't tell anyone!). So they thought they'd fight a novelty with a novelty. By the time they truly understood and appreciated how good a politician Obama is, and how smart he is, it was too late. They have two intellectually uncurious people with questionable ethics at the top of their ticket. And they're not smart enough to even be good at being corrupt. The Republicans are better off losing (tell EVERYONE!)

I don't think he's saying McCain put the country at risk by putting Palin a hearbeat away; I think he's saying that in doing so, McCain's already lost the election and, in paving the way to an Obama presidency, thereby put the country at risk.

Poor, misguided soul.

"[McCain] knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot."

Um... sorry, Matthew, McCain knows IN HIS BRAIN that he put someone unqualified on the ballot. Or at least he knows it now. It's kind of obvious. It was probably obvious the day after the Republican convention. If not then, it became obvious in the days following. Gut has nothing to do with it.

While it's pretty obvious that Palin doesn't belong on a national ticket, the fact is that a substantial portion of the Republican base thinks she's just aces. What's dangerous for the country (and the world) isn't so much Palin; it's the large, well-organized cohort whose political judgment is so horrendous that they consider her to be not just a viable candidate, but a superb candidate.

Wingnuttia is the danger, not the Wingnut of the Day.

I wonder if Dowd is going to get the same treatment that Christopher Buckley, who was tarred and reathered, and just resigned from his dad's rag, did when he endorsed Obama.

'feathered' not 'reathered' That's what I get for trying to multi task.

Never fear. I'm sure the boys and girls and the Corner and Wise William Kristol will have an air tight explanation as to why Mr. Dowd is full of shit (other than the fact that he is otherwise being full of shit being a Rethug operative).

You can feel the loonies blood pressure rising, day-by-day.

John Cleese video on Palin. Here is the youtube via Sullivan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMyNk8J1c8g

I love the way Cleese claims that 90% of Europeans regard Palin as not being "good enough" for America. That's a remarkable perspective. In other words: Foreigners still hold America in high enough esteem to pan Palin en masse.

There is hope yet...

OT: Another call for the death of Barack Obama at a Palin rally today.

http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/articles/2008/10/14/news/doc48f4ba8994588930223377.txt

Is there a single Republican left that will condemn this crap?

McCain's biggest asset here was that he had the media eating out of his hand (almost literally in some cases). When he alienated them, by picking Palin, he lost his best advantage in this election. Sure, the political media suffered a couple of months of cognitive dissonance and tried to reconcile the McCain they thought existed with the one that does. And it's also true that they still haven't debunked their myths of St. John of Arizona.

I think McCain's current line where he tries to convince his supporters that, maybe, calling for Obama's death isn't a good thing is an effort to buy back his media cred.

I agree with jimBOB - and it's also true that McCain is no longer qualified. It's clearly evident from his erratic campaign and his lack of any coherent plan for the country. The guy is past it, way past it. I am sure many in the media and the Republican Party know this, but are letting this pathetic charade proceed to its conclusion anyway. Perhaps they rationalize their inaction by presuming Obama is going to win, so what's the harm? But McCain could win, and what a disaster that would be.

But what is truly frightening is that 45% of the electorate is either too stupid to see that both Palin and McCain are completely unsuited for their positions, or that they don't care. They just want to "win," as if this were a football game and no matter how terrible their team, the only thing they want is for it to win.

How can democracy work when the Republicans offer candidates who have no business running for office? And when half the electorate is completely unable to distinguish the good from the awful? The answer is, it can't.

You'd think after eight years somebody would be saying, "Never again." But they aren't. They said it about Clinton, for chris sakes, but not about the worst president we ever had.

Dowd has little credibility on this issue, as he is among the Republicans that happily inflicted Bush on the nation. Palin is quite awful, but I don't see that she is hugely worse than Bush.

Why do all these Republicans who hate America accuse other Republicans of hating America?

Dude! Of COURSE he put the country at risk!

HE'S A MAVERICK!!!

This is a guy who loves gambling. Why run America like a 9-to-5 job when you can treat it like a Vegas weekend?! Hell yeah! 200 billion on seven the hard way!!!!

(I'm going to miss McCain when he's gone. By which I mean this McCain -- the real one. Not the contrite, apologetic, honorable liar that we'll get back next time the Senate is in session.)

[Speaking of which, anybody else have this thought? How funny is it going to be for Hillary and McCain to sit down and talk about how neither one of them could beat Obama? McCain's going to be pissed she didn't take him out, she's going to be pissed he didn't take Obama out and make it possible for her to run in 2012. Ow...I just tore something from laughing so hard....]

I agree with jimBOB - and it's also true that McCain was never qualified. Posted by: hark

There. Fixed it for you.

If anyone wants a good laugh check out the weekley standard blog. It feels like dispatches from Hitler's bunker. It reeks of sadness and an unwilliness to admit defeat as your ideology is being ground into dust by the crushing movements of the cosmos.

I still have trouble understanding why he chose Palin. OK, I can see how having a woman on the ticket would be extremely valuable. But there are about 55 million Repubicans, and if we assume half are women, we have 27.5 million female Republicans. I think about 27 million of those would be more qualified than Palin. Snowe, Collins, Hutchinson, and Dole come to mind immediately.

That would have been surreal to see Lieberman debating Biden.

"Do you mind if I call you 'Joe'?"
"Not at all. Do you mind if I call you 'Joe'?"

I don't think he's saying McCain put the country at risk by putting Palin a hearbeat away; I think he's saying that in doing so, McCain's already lost the election and, in paving the way to an Obama presidency, thereby put the country at risk.

Poor, misguided soul.
Posted by: tina on October 14, 2008 at 3:05 PM | PERMALINK

********************************

this is just how repiglicans turn things around and make shit up to avoid ACTUAL REALITY. they need to sustain their delusions and illusions as ACTUAL REALITY. and when their delusional reality is confronted with truths and facts they invent yet more delusions to justify the existing delusions rather than to simply admit THAT THEY ARE FUCKING WRONG .. THAT THEIR LIVES HAVE BEEN FUCKING WRONG .. nope can't do that .. so let's play more pretend and invent more delusions so as to avoid ACTUAL REALITY....DOWD SAID WHAT HE SAID PLANE AND SIMPLE ... McEvil has put our country at risk ..THAT'S McCain .. got it stupid .. McCain, not Obama

Steve Benen wrote: "But it is safe to say the day McCain picked Palin was the day the political establishment realized McCain isn't the man they thought he was."

Actually, it would be "the day the Rove Gang told McCain that he couldn't have Lieberman or Ridge as his running mate because they had selected Palin and McCain had no say in the matter."

That was the day that McCain went from being an actual candidate to being a pathetic stooge.

But there are about 55 million Repubicans, . . . Posted by: ArkPanda

Registered Republics? Sounds high by a factor of 2. There are only about 300 million Americans with approximately 25% of them too young to vote and probably another 30-40% that could vote but don't and have never registered a political affiliation.

I'd say that probably 25 million registered Republicans is about right with a more-or-less equal number of registered Democrats.

72 million registered Democrats
55 million registered Republicans

I'm now glad that Obama didn't pick Hillary for the VP job. If she had been the nom, I doubt that McCain would have picked Palin and the election would have been much closer.

So "they" wouldn't let McCain choose the candidate he wanted. So, it seems like "they" are the ones who have put the country at greater risk. McCain is reacting all the way through his candidacy instead of being in charge. Events didn't just conspire against McCain. McCain let a lot of his bad fortune happen by default. He also had some good fortune and won the GOP primary by default. The people are deciding they do not want to let default determine our path. Hope needs a plan, not a throw of the dice. Palin solidly confirmed the read on McCain as being too risky for the presidency.

Registered Republics? Sounds high by a factor of 2. There are only about 300 million Americans with approximately 25% of them too young to vote and probably another 30-40% that could vote but don't and have never registered a political affiliation.

Registration from 1994 through 2006 seems to have been pretty constant at around 67% of the voting age population.

I'd say that probably 25 million registered Republicans is about right with a more-or-less equal number of registered Democrats.

Given that, of the 201 million voting-age citizens, 135 million were registered to vote and 96 million voted in the 2006 elections, that seems unreasonably low, the idea that there are 25 million each registered Republicans and Democrats seems unreasonably low.

(My information is from the June 2008 report, Voting and Registration in the November 2006 Election from the US Census Bureau.)

There's a saying in business: A's hire A's; B's hire C's

Obama hired an A, McCain hired a C. The implication is obvious.

There's a saying in business: A's hire A's; B's hire C's

Obama hired an A, McCain hired a C. The implication is obvious.

Given that, of the 201 million voting-age citizens, 135 million were registered to vote and 96 million voted in the 2006 elections, that seems unreasonably low, the idea that there are 25 million each registered Republicans and Democrats seems unreasonably low. Posted by: cmdicely

Nope. In fact, your numbers pretty much support my position on participation and that only about 30-50% of the voting public has any sort of reliable party affiliation (votes Dem or Rethug regardless). The rest of the population that bothers to vote swings from presidential election to presidential election, proving that most voters have no discernible political philosophy at all.

Again, getting back to what started this, I doubt there are 55 million registered Republicans, unless, of course, someone's using Chicago-style voter registration.

@ stormskies

Crap. I thought about doing a follow-up post, because I had this feeling I didn't get my original post quite right. What I meant was that I think that Dowd thinks the country's at risk because of what he perceives as the likely Obama presidency (which I feel kind of scarily confident about, these days), and that Dowd's a poor misguided soul because HE thinks THAT's a problem.

Nobody else understood it that way? Faugh. I'll have to go track down some follow-up.

Let me be very clear: An Obama presidency can only be a GOOD thing. And I hope at least some of the "repiglicans" are pleasantly surprised.

So much fear. Yeesh.

I'm now glad that Obama didn't pick Hillary for the VP job. If she had been the nom, I doubt that McCain would have picked Palin and the election would have been much closer.

Posted by: J Bean on October 14, 2008 at 4:20 PM

I see where you're coming from (I too am glad Hillary wasn't selected, albeit for different reasons), but it's not as if Palin was the only Republican woman McCain could have chosen.

I disagree with many of Kay Bailey Hutchison's views, but at least believe she's sufficiently competent to be a heartbeat away. Two unrelated Whitmans (Meg of eBay fame, Christie of New Jersey) would also have made political sense, although the latter's tenure with the EPA would have been a hurdle and her abortion rights stance might have irritated some of the GOP base (even though that issue is becoming more and more irrelevant with each election). Unless Palin was foisted upon McCain by the right-wing punks who wield power in the GOP, he himself is to blame.

In fact, your numbers pretty much support my position on participation and that only about 30-50% of the voting public has any sort of reliable party affiliation

Uh, no, they don't.

In fact, they say nothing at all about the percentage of the voting public that has any sort of reliable party affiliation, only about the percentage of the voting-age citizenry that is registered to vote (about 2/3) and the percentage that actually voted in 2006 (about 2/3 of those registered). Now, ISTR that registration sometime in 2006 was in the neighborhood of 42% D, 33% R, 25% Other; with the 135 million registered voters, that would be about 45 million Republicans, a lot closer to the 55 million than to your proposed 25 million.

From what I've seen elsewhere, the 72 million D, 55 million R figure that has been batted around was originally from 2004, though it still gets cited as if it were current a number of places; if its high for Republicans, its probably mostly because of post-2004 realignment. But your 25 million each D & R number is just completely pulled out of the air.

Now, ISTR that registration sometime in 2006 was in the neighborhood of 42% D, 33% R, 25% Other; with the 135 million registered voters, that would be about 45 million Republicans, a lot closer to the 55 million than to your proposed 25 million.

From what I've seen elsewhere, the 72 million D, 55 million R figure that has been batted around was originally from 2004, though it still gets cited as if it were current a number of places; if its high for Republicans, its probably mostly because of post-2004 realignment. But your 25 million each D & R number is just completely pulled out of the air. Posted by: cmdicely

Self-identification and registration are not the same thing, and it's the former you are citing. As a matter of fact, no reliable figures exist for registered party affiliation as most states don't require this, that's why I estimate that about 50% of all people who vote are 1) registered with a specific party and 2) vote the party bloc regardless of the candidate. The latter is, of course, what really matters.

i was just thinking about how the circular firing squad will second-guess the election loss 60 [or 600] days from now and wondered how many will realise that "the decision to add Palin to the ticket was the day that sealed McCain's defeat."

people like me realised it was the DECISION that was the issue.... and it has already made mccain look very bad.....

No, Jeff, I'm talking about registration, not self-identification. The source for the overall totals for 2006 was already cited, the 2004 estimate of 72 million, D, 55 million R, 42 million other is also about registration, not self -identification. (A more current estimate is the AP's 2008 estimate of 41 million registered Democrats and 31 million registered Republicans, which is closer to your estimate of registered Republicans, but far from your estimate of total party registration or your suggestion of parity between the two parties.)

While a majority of states do not require voters to state a party preference (in fact, I think all do not), it is a minority that do not allow voters to specify a preference, and in many not specifying one has consequences (such as on primary voting opportunities).