Quite right. John McCain made this mess. I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

How long will it be before we learn that she has seldom if ever been in her "favorite consignment shop"? Then that will be the story of the day. So if McCain has failed to take advantage of her strengths, then she must have a strength other than creating a diversion. I rather doubt it, but perhaps I just can't see it through all the diversions.

good morning steve,
the word of the day
(the bitter and heartbreaking future that we and barack obamahave to face -- thanks to this tribe of crooks and clowns -- not withstanding)
is
schadenfreude.

i'll use ir in a sentence:

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Here's how this breaks out:

1) John McCain is personally responsible for the VP pick. He's asking voters to hire him for the job of President, and a big part of that job -- bigger than maybe we ever knew until George W. "Heckuva Job" Bush -- is putting the right people in the right places to help run the country. With his pick of Sarah Palin John McCain failed in his basic responsibility, giving voters cause to reject him outright.

2) As to *how* Palin ended up being chosen, there are two keys factors. First, the very qualities the Republicans thought they could use to their advantage -- her telegenic bone structure, her media bio, her familiarity with teleprompters and such -- were things that she turned on them as well. They thought they were getting a private look at a hot new product, but Palin effectively did to the Republican brain trust what they were going to do to America: she duped the shit out of them. Second, McCain -- as a long-time Senator -- delegated the selection process, if not his entire campaign, to others. He didn't do due diligence in any meaningful way.

3) Sarah Palin is not a smart person. She's got a folksy act that she uses not simply to ingratiate herself with others, but to actively hide her lack of knowledge on a whole host of topics. She is good at political infighting, and commands power through fear and intimidation, but has no real understanding of many of the basic facets of governance. In short, she's an idiot; a stepford candidate who can get the likes of Rich Lowry and William Kristol hot for her, but when it comes to substance there's no there there. And in 2012 there's not going to be any more there there than there is there now.

Recalling that this is a modern Republican Party (see Christopher Buckley) that disdains science, education and facts, this isn't so much of a revelation. It's a feature, not a bug.

Why on earth did he pick her?

Because he was thinking about how to spice up his campaign rather than how to bolster his administration.

God forgive those of us who actually respected John McCain in 2000.

This pick will certainly be perceived as one of the greatest political missteps and mysteries in several decades. There are probably but 2-3 individuals behind the decision and taking ownership by one of the "behind the curtain" players has him/her stocking grocery shelves in perpetuity. Failing that I supppose they could always helm Palin's 2012 run.

If McWizard only had Integrity he would not have picked Sarah Palin!

Republicans always make a word or phrase that is good and right, a dirty word, example liberal. Redistribution of wealth or spreading the wealth, epitomizes the principals of sharing and fairness -- it means that everyone gets to share in the pie, everyone has opportunity, not just the special few! I believe that the McWizards of Oz are finally being exposed for what they are Frauds! AND

If the American public is truly concerned about the Voting Problems in America, then they should vote Dems all the way down the chain, because Republicans have filibustered or stopped any kind of legislation to reform our voting system from fraud and hacking time and time again. We need a voting system we can believe in. This you will see reformed with a Dem President and legislation, along with enacting badly needed regulatory rules on our economic systems.

poor sarah palin, now reduced to wearing rags that she does not even own.

Oh the injustice of it all... And here we have the first woman VP nominee for the repug party - some want to make it about her clothes.

We should be talking about abuse of power and treason - her support for Alaska succession from the union.

"McCain's aides have misused her and failed to take advantage of her strengths."

But all they have done is take advantage of her strengths. Her strength was appealing to the most extreme base of the Republican Party (who wasn't enamoured of John McCain). She did that brilliantly...to the point of opening a Pandora's Box of bigotry, racism and hate. Beyond that dubious "strength" there's nothing else to her. She's not smart, she's self absorbed, she's polarizing. She was really of very limited value, and was more of liability.

She's the scab over the sore. Its was John McCain's decision, it was his campaign manager's idea, so the entire braintrust of the campaign is at fault,mostly John McCain himself. The ultimate decision rests on his shoulders.

How else could they have handled her? she was brought in to stoke up the arch conservative base, beyond that she was useless.

I've got to go with "all of the above."

McCain put the wrong people in charge of his new personality and made the wrong choice for VP. Palin should have known better, but then, turning away from the spotlight isn't in her wiring. The handlers shouldn't have hidden her from the media so obviously [but, probably had no choice].

A Hail Mary is a low percentage play that takes a lot of finesse and even more dumb luck to work.

The McCain campaign chose to run a Hail Mary with the score tied three minutes into the second half. And they basically threw the ball to the one person on the team without any arms or legs.

All they ended up with was, well, dumb.

Palin is an accident of history. She is on the scene not because of competence, not because of supposed beauty, not because of wealth--but because the very small Republican party in Alaska disintegrated completely due to outlandish corruption. She won the fractured fairy tale. She is still not ready to be Mayor. That much said, the twit accepted the offer. She knew what she didn't know, and her ego still let her go on this train-ride to humiliation. Delusion is one tough mistress--tougher by far than a toothless and aging barracuda. So, bad judgment all around. Kristol is the biggest dunderhead, as he usually is, in selling this fantasy. I pray that this fiasco ends November 4th without them destroying the country. This is epic incompetence. EPIC. These guys are blown so far off course that I expect that Homer would give up on finishing this poem. The Siren of the Right wing crashes them into the rocks while the team argues about hair stylists and who is more ignorant.

Every time I look at her I see Dan Quayle in a skirt. Prior to Clinton/Gore, not much was expected of VPs except to look nice at formal events. She could handle that. McCain just didn't notice that the criteria changed.

The fact that anyone in the media is being critical is a good sign that the sharks smell blood. The CNN pundits at least are mixing their snarks with compliments in discussing Obama.

This is the ideal example of a situation where you should split the baby. Both of these are equally at fault: he for asking, she for accepting.

Palin is no more lazy, ignorant or incompetent than GWB. But 1) she's a woman, and 2) she didn't come from a well-connected wealthy background. Two great handicaps in the minds of conservatives.

Palin is no more lazy, ignorant or incompetent than GWB.

Shorter CaptCrisis: To be fair to McCain, being a moron hasn't exactly been a disqualification for higher office the past eight years.

I also think a lot of blame for Palin as millstone falls indirectly on Dick Cheney. In eight years he has basically taken over the bus from the back seat and driven it over a cliff. He has remade the vice presidency into a frightening new power that can easily overtake the presidency. Now, put Palin in that position and it'll make any head [with a brain in it] explode.

I think McCain got pwned by the conservatives - they demanded Palin as the price of supporting him. What McCain didn't know was that they had already given up this election, and just wanted to put their chosen 2012 candidate into the spotlight. Sarah will be in the perfect spot to wink at the voters and blame all the Republican excesses on Obama - especially after continual stonewalling by the Rs in Congress. Democrats will work with Republicans in the country's best interests - Republicans would rather see the country destroyed than let Democrats pass anything.

"why on earth did McCain pick her?"

not only for all the wrong reasons, but the results from those reasons have even turned out to be wrong.

i guess two wrongs make a 'far right'.

What's interesting to me is that she was selected on the strength of her capacity to be divisive: the intent, apparently, was to separate disaffected Hillary supporters, potential racists, and blue-collar workers from the Democratic Party.

Being divisive is something Sarah Palin does particularly well, so in that sense she was a good choice for McCain's vp candidate. "No one could have anticipated" she would turn her divisiveness on those closest to her. . .

Palin may be a lousy student, but McCain and associates didn't really have much that they could teach her.

One 72 year of Melanoma cell away from the Prez-is-dense-she.

I keep wondering: was the whole McCain campaign, including the Palin pick, a pre-emptive strike by Rove? Left to his own devices McCain's first action as President would have been to send Rove to Gitmo for a 4 year "factfinding" visit - complete with cell and waterboard. But Rove somehow got his key men into the McCain campaign and started calling the shots. Did Rove, knowing 2008 was probably a loss for the Rs, decide to r*****k McCain for the fun of it and to dispose of an inconvenient irritant to his future plans?

The fact that he invited her to be on the ticket and that she said yes, they are both equally complicit.

I believe the person who has the most to gain or lose should be held to a greater degree of responsibility.

I don't understand why this is even an issue. McCain claims to relish in making rash decisions and is always willing to live with the consequences.

Discussion over.

It would be fascinating, in a can't-stop-picking-a-scab kind of way, to see Quayle and Palin go head to head in a battle of wits and knowledge.

Also, there's no doubt a book to be written on comparing media treatment and public acceptance of Quayle and Palin.

From The Phantom: "And in 2012 there's not going to be any more there there than there is there now." The ad copy for 2012 nearly writes itself: New and Improved Palin!!! Now with more lipstick! Try the new Wrinkle-Free edition! Twice as many phrases when you pull the string, but still includes the crowd-pleasing classics, "Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad", "Ya betcha, also", and "I'll try ta find some and I'll bring 'em to ya"

i was thinking 'bout the blame game and came to the same conclusion steve did " If she's the disaster who gets the blame, it's still McCain who bears responsibility for the fiasco."

after all, it's not like she was an obvious genius, who got dumbovernight or someone with a flair for doing local media interviews who all of the sudden couldn't perform when confronted with the likes of catie couric....

she didn't "fail to live up to expectations" either, because the mccain people never vetted her, so they'd have NO IDEA what to expect....

as far as i can tell, palin performed up to her abilities..... her lack of abilities, of course....that's not her fault....

just cause the mccain camp had delusions about how widespread her appeal was gonna be or how many pumas she'd get to cross over gives them a license to point fingers