Baffling.

Jonathan Alter:

"What is it exactly that the vice president does all day?" Palin offhandedly asked CNBC anchor Larry Kudlow in July. Kudlow explained that the job has become more important in recent years. Palin knows the energy crisis well, even if her claim on "Charlie Rose" that Alaska's untapped resources can significantly ease it is unsupported by the facts. But what does she know about Iranian nukes, health care or the future of entitlement programs? And that's just a few of the 20 or so national issues on which she will be expected to show basic competence. The McCain camp will have to either let her wing it based on a few briefing memos (highly risky) or prevent her from taking questions from reporters (a confession that she's unprepared). Either way, she's going to belly-flop at a time when McCain can least afford it.

Forget belly flop, I'd just like to know that she even has some basic interest in those issues. I'd like a candidate whose own statements aren't an insult to the American voters asked to consider her. When Palin says "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments", or, indeed, asks what the vice president actually does, that's hardly the sign of a keen policy mind.

If something were to happen to McCain, she'd be President of the United States. Would she care about Iraq then? Or Iran? Or anything else, save hardcore conservative social issues and -- her personal area of expertise -- oil companies?

As Rove himself said about a different -- ironically, more qualified candidate:

So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I'm really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States? What I'm concerned about is, can he bring me the electoral votes of the state of Virginia, the 13 electoral votes in Virginia?'

So is the Palin choice just about picking up Alaska? It couldn't be for her hardcore social conservative stances -- plenty of Republicans have that. It's not because she's one of the few Republicans who's scandal-free, because she's got scandals dogging her as we speak. It sure as heck ain't because McCain looked around the room and thought she was the Republican best qualified to become the possible "leader of the free world." Did everyone else turn him down?

Given that Bush I picked Quayle, and Bush II picked the guy who was deciding who he should pick, modern Republicans definitely have some odd choices for the second slot. But this one?

Jack Cafferty on CNN was appropriately fuming when he said:

Democrats had a great convention, and now they get Christmas. This is a joke.

Maybe, but I'm not getting the punchline.