While a CNN journalist writes an article claiming that troopergate is the "one and only potential scandal I can find concerning Gov. Palin," Frank Rich's Sunday Op-Ed is a fact-filled summary of the events since Palin's nomination, culminating with John McCain's boring acceptance speech, which Rich declares was not smug or nasty, but was "a sham."
Last night Josh Marshall posted an impression of some new reporting from CNN:
If this is the attitude of the investigative reporter CNN has put on the trooper-gate case, I guess we shouldn't be expecting much from them.
Oy - Josh Marshall
Curiosity enticed me to click the link and quickly become appalled at what CNN had posted as an excuse for journalism.
It was an exclusive penned by Drew Griffin about Palin's ex-brother-in-law who is the center of Troopergate. If this is what passes for investigative reporting, this guy needs to look for new employment. The offending sentence:
The trooper finds his life at the center of the one and only potential scandal I can find concerning Gov. Palin, John McCain’s choice for running mate.
AC360 Exclusive: The trooper who worried Sarah Palin
The only potential scandal? What rock is this guy living under? Anybody with access to a computer can type "Palin Scandals" into a search engine and come up with a long list of potential scandals. In fact, using Google, the very first item to come up is, Top Ten Sarah Palin Scandals, implying that there are more than ten, and the blog post is offering only the cream of the crop.
Thank goodness for Frank Rich, who gives us another stellar Op-Ed piece that eloquently summarizes the events of the last ten days from the announcement of Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee on the Republican ticket, to John McCain's acceptance speech. He covers all the bases, including more than one potential scandal, and reminds us of what the selection really is about -- John McCain's judgment.
Given the actuarial odds that could make Palin our 45th president, it would be helpful to know who this mystery woman actually is. Meanwhile, two eternal axioms of our politics remain in place. Americans vote for the top of the ticket, not the bottom. And in judging the top of the ticket, voters look first at the candidates’ maiden executive decision, their selection of running mates. Whatever we do and don’t know about Palin’s character at this point, there is no ambiguity in what her ascent tells us about McCain’s character and potential presidency.
Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage
While pundits and political junkies alike have praised Obama's choice for running mate, and the process his campaign used to vet his selection, Joe Biden; McCain's process and choice looks amateurish and completely politically motivated. While Caroline Kennedy describing what watching Obama go through the process was like, commented:
"I’ve campaigned with him and seen him in large settings," she said, "but to see the way he asked questions, listened, brought people together, with his leadership style and the kind of judgments he was making, really made me think he was even better than I thought he was."
Caroline Kennedy on V.P. Vetting
Arthur Culvahouse found himself defending the process he lead for the McCain campaign:
Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., the lawyer who conducted the background review, told The Associated Press in an interview Monday that Palin underwent a "full and complete" background examination before McCain chose her as his running mate. Asked whether everything that came up as a possible red flag during the review already has been made public, Culvahouse said: "I think so. Yah, I think so. Correct."
McCain camp's detailed review of Palin
He had a difficult time asserting that everything there was to know about Sarah Palin had been revealed to the American people. And yet, after he made his shaky assertion we continued to learn more.
After pointing out that McCain made a hasty and politically motivated decision in his selection, Rich leads us through other instances of poor decision making by John McCain.
We’ve already seen where such visceral decision-making by McCain can lead. In October 2001, he speculated that Saddam Hussein might have been behind the anthrax attacks in America. That same month he out-Cheneyed Cheney in his repeated public insistence that Iraq had a role in 9/11 — even after both American and foreign intelligence services found that unlikely. He was similarly rash in his reading of the supposed evidence of Saddam’s W.M.D. and in his estimate of the number of troops needed to occupy Iraq. (McCain told MSNBC in late 2001 that we could do with fewer than 100,000.) It wasn’t until months after "Mission Accomplished" that he called for more American forces to be tossed into the bloodbath. The whole fiasco might have been prevented had he listened to those like Gen. Eric Shinseki who faulted the Rumsfeld war plan from the start.
In other words, McCain’s hasty vetting of Palin was all too reminiscent of his grave dereliction of due diligence on the war. He has been no less hasty in implying that we might somehow ride to the military rescue of Georgia ("Today, we are all Georgians") or in reaffirming as late as December 2007 that the crumbling anti-democratic regime of Pervez Musharraf deserved "the benefit of the doubt" even as it was enabling the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. McCain’s blanket endorsement of Bush administration policy in Pakistan could have consequences for years to come.
Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage
If your head is spinning from all the revelations of the past week or so, then reading Frank Rich's column will help you put everything back into perspective and catch up on where things stand.
After enumerating all the reasons why John McCain would be a poor choice for president, Rich warns that he might just pull it off.
That’s why the Palin choice was brilliant politics — not because it rallied the G.O.P.’s shrinking religious-right base. America loves nothing more than a new celebrity face, and the talking heads marched in lock step last week to proclaim her a star. Palin is a high-energy distraction from the top of the ticket, even if the provenance of her stardom is in itself a reflection of exactly what’s frightening about the top of the ticket.
By hurling charges of sexism and elitism at any easily cowed journalist who raises a question about Palin, McCain operatives are hoping to ensure that whatever happened in Alaska with Sarah Palin stays in Alaska. Given how little vetting McCain himself has received this year — and that only 58 days remain until Nov. 4 — they just might pull it off.
Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage
So let's heed the warning, and not take our eyes off the prize and let the McCain campaign use smokescreens and slight of hand to bamboozle the American public into buying into his tarnished Maverick brand.