If I'm reading this right, about 89% of Republicans approve of the Palin pick, but only 74% believe she's prepared to be president. This means that 15% of Republicans approve of their nominee choosing a running mate who's unprepared to succeed him if necessary. Analysis is left as an exercise for the reader.

Most people had never heard of Sarah Palin when she was named Republican VP nominee. But I’d been hearing her name all too often, because I belong to a group called Defenders of Wildlife–and in her time as governor of Alaska, Palin has used her position as governor of Alaska to ruin the Alaskan wilderness in every way she could.

Her most recent “victory” came on August 26 when Alaska’s voters defeated Measure 2, an initiative that would have banned hunting wolves from airplanes for sport.


Palin organized a campaign against Measure 2, and funded it with $400,000 of state money. For most of us, the idea of zooming around in a private airplane over snowbound wilderness just for the chance to spot a terrified wild dog and blow it apart with a high-powered rifle is insane. But there’s a whole culture out there in love with the idea. Palin did her part by playing the tired old Alaskan pioneer card, saying that lower-48 naysayers who dared to object to the idea of divebombing wildlife didn’t “understand rural Alaska.”

Alaska isn’t really very hard to understand. It consists of a minority that loves the wilderness and an overwhelmingly Republican majority that wants to squeeze all the cash it can get out of the state before the oil dries up, the fish die out, and the wildlife disappears. Nowhere else does the Republican formula of manipulating the suckers by playing on their silly hatreds and even sillier vanities play out more clearly than in Alaska.

...
Perhaps the saddest aspect of Palin’s disgusting record on environmental issues is the fact that it’s hardly even being mentioned in the debate about her nomination. Most of the focus, for an audience of suckers weaned on celebrity gossip, seems to be about her mothering skills, her daughter’s pregnancy, and whether she was Miss Congeniality or just a runner-up in some beauty pageant. The fact that she makes her living helping to wipe out whole species, poison productive watersheds, and play to the stupidest great-white-hunter fantasies of her constituency hardly even seems worth a mention.

God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in his perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines and fishing boats. Now, as to the ANWR, Todd and I often enjoying caribou hunting and one year we shot up a herd big time, I mean I personally slaughtered around 40 of them with my new, at the time, custom Austrian hunting rifle. And guess what? That caribou herd is still around and even bigger than ever. Caribou herds actually need culling, be it by rifles or wolves, or Exxon-Mobil oil rigs, they do just great!

What struck me as I watched the convention speeches, however, is how much of the anger on the right is based not on the claim that Democrats have done bad things, but on the perception — generally based on no evidence whatsoever — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people.

Thus Mr. Giuliani asserted that Wasilla, Alaska, isn’t “flashy enough” for Mr. Obama, who never said any such thing. And Ms. Palin asserted that Democrats “look down” on small-town mayors — again, without any evidence.

What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you.

By the end of the night, the Republicans seemed like they’d come full circle: down with Obama, up with Palin, then down again with McCain. Or, in the vocabulary of conventions: Palin stepped on Obama’s bounce, then McCain stepped on Palin’s.

You can’t help but admire the way John McCain refuses to exploit his wartime service for political gain.

"I wrote the other day that a Palin spokeswoman said trips to Germany, Kuwait and Ireland made up her foreign travel.

Two details worth clarifying:

The Ireland trip was a refueling stop on her trip to military installations in Germany and Kuwait, spokeswoman Maria Comella said.

And she's also visited Canada, another spokesman, Ben Porritt, says.

There are senior-level advisers in the campaign who opposed the pick and who are leaking details about the vetting process to undercut the pick.

Q: I was just talking to someone who claimed to have knowledge of Alaska to some degree, and they say where Sarah Palin comes from it's the equivalent of Humboldt or Chico in California, like, of course, you know, she'd have a Girls Gone Wild phase, and smoking pot. Is this just wishcasting, or what can you tell us about her geographical background?

A: So the Mat-Su Valley, you know, Matanuska-Susitna Valley, otherwise known as Upper Wingnuttia, is full of right-wing libertarian militia fundamendalist Christian gun-toting, pot-growing dope-heads.

Q: Awesome.

A: Yeah. If Jerry Falwell rolled his own, you would have the Mat-Su Valley. I live in South Anchorage, and my raspberry plants, courtesy of 22 hours of daylight in the summer, grow eight and a half foot high. That's a raspberry bush. Can you imagine what a single pot plant would turn into? [...]

Charlie Cook, the great political analyst, passed this along today: He spoke with someone who described going through three interviews before getting a job at Ruby Tuesday’s. If you generously construe the record, that’s one more discussion than McCain had with Palin. Maybe Ruby Tuesday’s should have done McCain’s vetting for him.

According to this Republican, who would discuss internal campaign strategizing only on condition of anonymity, the McCain team used little more than a Google Internet search as part of a rushed effort to review Palin's potential pitfalls. Just over a week ago, Palin was not on McCain's short list of potential running mates, the Republican said.

Things are looking up for John McCain. Last week ended with a bang with the announcement of his fresh-faced new running mate Sarah Palin, who should provide McCain many more years of extended existence through gradual consumption of her life force, and, if needed, a new host body should his current vessel fail him.

Sen. John McCain knew. A few members of his senior staff knew. Most members of his senior staff did not know. Palin's spokesman in Alaska did not know. Palin's campaign-appointed spokesman did not know. McCain staffers -- at different levels of the campaign -- are a bit stunned.

Reporters at the Republican national convention hammered McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt about the Palin pregnancy during a press conference. All Schmidt would say is Palin and McCain had discussed the pregnancy and considered it to be a private matter.

He wouldn't say if they talked about it before McCain picked Palin as his vice presidential nominee.

"I answered that question nine times," he said.

Now I know people might be doing some tut-tutting about Bristol being only 17 and not married yet, but all I have to say to that is why do you have to be such negative nancies?! She's got her loving family to help out (note to self: check up on daycare options at vice presidence house), and PLUS doesn't everyone say it's best to get get started early? I mean just THINK about it! If I had FIVE kids after starting at age 25, who KNOWS how many she'll have with an 8 year head start on me! I'm giddy just thinking about it!

STEPHANOPOULOS: But she has no national security experience.

McCAIN: You know, the experience that she comes from is what she’s done in government, and remember, Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia. It’s not as if she doesn’t understand what’s at stake here.

So they flew me out to Minnesota, and when I got off the plane I ran up to John McCain and hugged him (good photo op, right? I'm thinking ahead!)--but it turns out that it wasn't John McCain at all! It was just some guy on his staff. Such a faux pas, but I don't think it's entirely my fault. I've only met John once, and it was six months ago. He could have emailed me an updated picture or something.

"The Presidency of the United States of America is the toughest job on the planet," Sen. McCain said. "And my friends, the best testing ground for that job is being the mayor of a 5,000-person town in Alaska."

Palin: University of Idaho, B.A. in journalism.
Obama: Columbia major in political science with a specialization in international affairs, Harvard Law School. Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, as a Lecturer for four years (1992–1996), and as a Senior Lecturer for eight years (1996–2004) University of Chicago Law is ranked #7 in US.

Palin: 2nd in Miss Alaska Beauty Pageant.
Obama: Editor, Harvard Law Review.

Palin: Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.
Obama: Illinois State Senate 1997-2004.

Palin: Governor - State of Alaska, pop. 700K, took office less than 2 years ago.
Obama: United States Senate 2005-present.

Palin: No foreign relations experience.
Obama: Senate Committee for Foreign Relations, Chairman of the Senate's Subcommittee on European Affairs. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama has made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.

Palin: Ethics Investigations: July 2008. Alaska legislators on Monday voted to spend up to $100,000 to investigate Gov. Sarah Palin's controversial firing of former state Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. On Monday, the (bipartisan) council voted 12-0 to spend up to $100,000 "to investigate the circumstances and events surrounding the termination of former Public Safety Commissioner Monegan, and potential abuses of power and/or improper actions by members of the executive branch." http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/478090.html
Obama: No ethics investigations.

Within days of selecting Dan Quayle for the 1988 Vice Presidential nomination, George Bush wrote in his diary: ''I blew it.''

In a new biography of the former President, a historian, Herbert S. Parmet, wrote that as Mr. Quayle became the butt of jokes, Mr. Bush ''did everything he could to show his confidence in the younger man.'' But in his diary, Mr. Bush wrote, ''It was my decision, and I blew it, but I'm not about to say that I blew it.''

The selection of Palin strikes me as a "stunt" nomination and an admission that even in the misty recesses of former prisoner of war John McCain's mind, he knows that he is truly fucked. Therefore the campaign seems to be hunting for the PUMA vote; the PUMA being a mythical creature with the body of a middle-aged woman and the head of an idiot.

named two daughters after television witches.

Palin's float won first prize in the political category at the 1999 Alaska State Fair.

Speaking of the Old Dirty Bastard who happens to be remarkably old, Palin’s shocking lack of experience (1+ year as governor of a small state after being mayor of a town with 8,000 proud inhabitants) guarantees that people will be talking about how old Oldy Decrepit is now that Sarriet Palin Miers could be one geriatric and feeble heartbeat away from the oval office. Of all the potential recipients of those 3:00am phone calls to pick from, Mumm-Ra chose her?

Recall: Obama chose Joe Biden.

Can’t you just smell the desperation? (over the musty old guy scent)

If asked about this issue he or a spokesperson will proclaim it isn't fair to pick on a former POW for talking about the fact he's a former POW. Pretty soon trying to talk to or about McCain will be like entering a carnival sideshow House of Mirrors.

I'm thinking at the Republican convention they'll build a bamboo hut on stage and have McCain pop out of it like a girl in a cake at just the right moment.

"He's gonna drunk-text the nation around midnight. It'll say 'my vp pic is hak jfjdj'"