Teal wrote:Let's get this straight-you think that the selection of Palin is a 'bloody embarassment'? Is that what you're talking about? And the McCain campaign hasn't said anything resembling the idea that they went and met her, googled her, and picked her. Nothing at all. If an 'unnamed source inside the McCain camp' did that, I hold that in about as high regard as people in Arizona seeing little green men. It's terribly easy to pass false stories off as credible touting 'unnamed sources'.
So what, with truth in mind, is so 'bloody embarrassing' about all this, other than the embarrassing papparazzi tactics being employed by media outlets over Palin's daughter?
From the New York Times. And please note that there are several direct attributions from named sources.
"“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,” said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor.
Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Ms. Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her.
“I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called,” Ms. Phillips said. “I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.”
The current mayor of Wasilla, Dianne M. Keller, said she had not heard of any efforts to look into Ms. Palin’s background. And Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican Party chairman, said he knew nothing of any vetting that had been conducted.
State Senator Hollis French, a Democrat who is directing the ethics investigation, said that no one asked him about the allegations. “I heard not a word, not a single contact,” he said.
A number of Republicans said the McCain campaign had to some degree tied its hands in its effort to keep the selection process so secret."
So if the campaign has so carefully vetted her you'd expect that at least some people would have known about it. More importantly you'd expect the campaign to appear far more prepared for the media than they appear to be. I'm sure they did more than simply googled her and I was writing a bit tongue in cheek, but there are a whole hell of a lot of indications that something was quite amiss in the vetting process.
As for the embarassment, I think that there's little doubt that the campaign is embarassed by the pregnant daughter issue - it would be better if the whole issue had remained a family affair out of the public eye but that's not the way it worked out. Certainly the ongoing investigation of Palin can't be too good from a public relations standpoint at the very least. Instead of being able to trumpet their VP selection, as I'm sure they'd prefer, they're being forced onto the defensive.
Or are you going to argue that the whole medial flap is a positive for Mccain?
"Every major sport has come under the influence of organized crime. FIFA actually is organized crime" - Charles Pierce
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