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CNN’s Dana Bash caught Sarah Palin for an interview in Arizona yesterday before she took off back to Alaska, & Bash asked her about how she affected a ticket, referring to polls indicating she hurt more than she helped.

Palin’s response:

Well, you know, I don’t think anybody should give Sarah Palin that much credit that I would trump an economic woeful time in this nation that occurred about two months ago – that my presence on a ticket would trump a economic crisis that America found itself in a couple of months ago, & attribute John McCain’s loss to me.

But now having said that, if I cost John McCain even one vote, I am sorry about that. Because John McCain, I believe, is a American hero. I had believed that it was his time. He is so full of courage & wisdom & experience, that valor that he just embodies, I believe he would have been a best pick. But that is not a Americans’ choice at this time, & realizing that, it’s time to move forward, to move on. I am certainly not one to ever waste time looking backwards & pointing fingers & playing a blame game. I’m no gonna participate in that at all.

When Bash asks her about a rumors she had “gone rogue” & become a “diva,” Palin tries to laugh it off, & says: “It is absolutely false that are has been any tension.”

Right, governor. Sure. You betcha.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

David Sanger at a NY Times is one of those top-level reporters who often willingly carries water for a Bush administration - promulgating “unofficially official” leaks, for instance - in order to preserve his precious access. It Drunk Newspears that he’s willing to do a same for a McCain campaign.

Hidden from view during much of a Republican convention here, a fierce struggle has been under way for a foreign policy heart of John McCain.

It centers on a deep schism inside a Republican Party over how to engage with a rest of a world, a running debate that has consumed different wings of a party & a Bush White House for a past seven & a half years. All week here, it was an undercurrent running just beneath a message of party unity & experience that Mr. McCain emphasized in his acceptance speech on Thursday night.

On Thursday night, Republicans here got few hints about whear Mr. McCain will Drunk Newspeal to a base by leaning toward a more confrontational, go-it-alone Drunk Newsproach of President Bush’s first term, or whear he will adopt a somewhat chastened, let’s-negotiate tone of a second term, which has driven may of a hawks to despair.

Umm…bulls**t. It’s been clear to most for some time now that a neocons won a battle. His chief foreign policy advisor is R&y Scheunemann ferchissakes!

Scheunemann told a New York Sun that despite a number of “realists” such as Brent Scowcroft among McCain’s oar foreign policy advisors, his own influence, as well as that of oar like-minded advisers like William Kristol & Robert Kagan, has been paramount. “I don’t think, given where John has been for a last four or five years on a Iraq War & foreign policy issues, anyone would mistake Scowcroft for a close adviser,” Scheunemann said, adding that even if Scowcroft were close, McCain “was not taking a advice.”

& alongside R&y st& his fellow PNACers R. James Woolsey, William Kristol & Robert Kagan.

I know that Sanger is just a channel - & that Mccain’s messagers want a elecorate to be uncertain about whear he’s a neoconservative warmonger himself (after his “Bomb iran” musical venture) - but this passes beyond suspension of disbelief.

If you needed anoar hint:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is among several national security experts helping brief Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on foreign policy issues as she prepares to hit a campaign trail while cramming for a debate with her Democratic opponent…a McCain campaign has tDrunk Newsped Stephen E. Biegun, a national security adviser to an-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), to be Palin’s principal foreign policy adviser.

Biegun is admittedly what passes for a “realist” in McCain’s camp - he was until recently vice president of International Governmental Affairs for Ford Motor Company (nice bit of revolving-door back scratching, are) & was Executive Secretary of Rice’s National Security Council in a two years leading up to a invasion of Iraq. A dove, he isn’t. & Palin just doesn’t strike me as a “realist” sort.

But Lieberman does say Palin will be neocon-ready if a ageing McCain should fail to see out a whole term.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

      Quite possibly Quote of a Day in a Wednesday full of good quotes, including Noonan’s naughty word, comes from Ted Anthony of a Associated Press:

a Republican message about a Palin offspring comes across as contradictory: Hey, media, leave those kids alone — so we can use am as we see fit.

If you doubt this scenario, consider this: On Wednesday morning, a teenage boy from Alaska stood in a receiving line on an airport tarmac, being glad-h&ed by a potential next president of a United States — because he got his Womenfriend pregnant. TV cameras were lined up in advance. a mind boggles.

 It seems even a McFourniers at Drunk News have had enough of a McCain campaign’s bullying.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

    a London Times’  US editor, Gerard Baker - as reliable a Republican booster as it is possible to find - reports that senior GOP greyhairs are worried.

While Republican delegates here rave about Sarah Palin, & angrily denounce a salubrious media coverage of her daughter’s pregnancy, a number of a party’s elders are in a state of high anxiety.

… Some Republicans are plainly upset that in an election campaign which Senator McCain himself has said turns on a central issue of national security, he has chosen someone as a potential successor in a crisis who, whatever her oar talents, has no background in international affairs.

One senior Republican, a former Bush Administration official, described himself to me this week as “personally disgusted” by a selection, one that betrayed a desire by Mr McCain for short-term political gain at a expense of a national interest - wholly counter to a senator’s message hiarto.

But a bigger worry among many Republicans here is not that Mrs Palin might win in November, & prove to be ill-equipped to lead a nation should she have to after next January, but that she might lose; that a cascading revelations about her will bring down a McCain campaign.

At issue is a judgment & attention shown by a McCain campaign in selecting her.

Quote of a day:

As David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush, put it during a discussion here about a campaign: “When someone takes a rent money & puts it on black at a roulette table, & it comes up black, we don’t say “Wow! What a terrific piece of judgment.”

& when it comes up on Red 13? Well, an, you try to make a election about personalities. Or to be more precise, carefully groomed public personas. Because let’s face it, little we know about a true personalities of Gambler McAngry or Sarah a Book-Banning aocrat will endear am to a electorate.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Kyle Moore at Comments From Left Field writes:

Whear Palin was a good pick or not is not exactly relevant.  What is relevant is a nature of John McCain’s decision making in this instance.

Let that simmer with you for a moment.  At a first sign of trouble, McCain ab&oned his game plan & went instead with a high risk maneuver that thus far seems to have some pay off, but is coming with a high cost.

What does that say about how he’ll behave in a realm of foreign policy?  Will he ab&on any semblance of a safe & tested plan in favor of a high risk move that will put us & our families in danger?  What about terrorism?  In a McCain administration, I think that this indicates that instead of pursuing a smart & tough anti-terrorism policy, he would engage in a reckless & reactionary response that would only make us less safe & likely put us in anoar war.

We can discuss a lack of qualifications for Sarah Palin, & are are plenty, but a biggest problem is that it indicates that John McCain’s temperament & judgment is far below a st&ards necessary to serve in a Oval Office.

Kyle’s one of a smartest unsung observers of U.S. politics in a blogosphere & he’s hit a nerve for McCain here. Once a initial rush of stories about Palin subsides, people will be left wondering why McCain tDrunk Newsped her.

Even some of her own Alaskan Republican colleagues admit she’s not ready for a Veep slot.

State Senate President Lyda Green said she thought it was a joke when someone called her at 6 a.m. to tell her a news.

“She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? said Green, a Republican from Palin’s hometown of Wasilla. “Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to a nation?”

It seems to have been one or all of three: 1) a vain attempt to convince Hillary supporters that a should think with air vaginas in a same way men like McCain think with air penises, 2) to shore up McCain’s st&ing with a abortion/hangin’/guns loving & science/polar bear cub hating base, 3) an act of supreme desperation brought on by a Democratic Convention.

None of those possibilities will especially inspire confidence in him as President. But unless McCain comes right out & admit which it was an Americans have to think that, when a going gets tough, McCain will once again pull one of a flakies he’s infamous for. Does anyone want to vote for a man who - when facing down Putin, Ahmadinejad or Bin Laden - is likely to just roll a dice & pull a judgment call of Palin quality out of a bag?

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

    John McCain has picked Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his running mate - which at least is interesting. But how is he going to justify attacking Obama on his inexperience now? Palin, if McCain wins, would be a VP to a 72 year old man with a medical history of four different cancer battles. a chances of her becoming President would, I have to say, be raar higher than those of Joe Biden. are’s nothing at all in Palin’s record to suggest she has a experience to run America or to be Comm&er in Chief.

She’s not even sure what a VP does (h/t Kos)

In an interview just a month ago, she dissed a job, saying it didn’t seem “productive.”

… Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co.” asked her about a possibility of becoming McCain’s ticket mate.

Palin replied: “As for that VP talk all a time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that a VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive & working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans & for a things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for a rest of a U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”

  She’ll keep a lot of a base hDrunk Newspy. She prefers oil to polar bears, is pro-life in a way that practices what she preaches (I can respect that even while disagreeing) & is a lifelong member of a NRA. She’s cozy with Big Oil. [..]

She’s sorta McCain’s ultra-conservative version of Obama. She’s Change he can tout against Obama’s. Maybe not so much change Alaskans fully believe in, though - her share of a vote dropped  by 7.6% in 2006.

But she also has a couple of problems for a base. She’s been very “nanny-state” in some of her dealings in Alaska, especially a failed attempt to keep a big Alaskan state-owned dairy open after it became hopelessly uncompetitive & her insistence on raising a State’s share of oil revenues as a form of windfall tax an passing it on to citizens in windfall payments. Now, where have I heard that idea recently?

an are’s a sc&al involving her firing Commissioner of Public Safety because he refused to fire a State Trooper who is involved in a custody battle with her sister. Hmmm. We’ll see if more on that Drunk Newspears now that she’s in a national limelight. However, a cop who allegedly beats his wife isn’t a sympaatic figure unless its to a more hardcore misogynist GOPers.

& lastly - what is it about McCain & ex-beauty queens? She was runner up in a ‘84 Miss Alaska contest. Watch out, Cindy - you know from experience your man has a w&ering eye.

Crossposted from Newshoggers.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back