Sarah Palin

When you get to know her, you're going to be as impressed as I am. -- John McCain, Friday, August 29, 2008

I wasn't able to resist junping into this fray. Over at the Life After the Oil Crash forum, poster "Velociraptor" sensibly commented with respect to Sarah Palin's announcement of her daughter's pregnancy:

My guess is that Bristol will have a "miscarriage" over the next couple months.

To which I replied:

Exactly. In the absence of both Sarah's and Bristol's medical records being shared with the press, this is all just stuff that that the family is saying. The only incontrovertible fact in the matter is that someone gave birth to a Down's syndrome child in April. And if it was Sarah, then the circumstances were strange to say the least.

I went on to say in a couple more posts:

I don't believe McCain for an instant when he says he knew about this alleged pregnancy of Bristol's (and if he did, since no statement was made until today, then he was involved in a pre-emptive cover-up of an inconvenient fact). No way that Sarah Palin would pass the vetting process in that case -- a "Jamie Lynn Spears pregnancy" in the midst of a national campaign would be considered too ridiculously distracting (as it is proving to be). But of course McCain's people did a very poor vetting job, in every way.

(BTW, since this sort of thing happens repeatedly, I'd like to say that I just don't get what goes on with vetting at this level. Why don't they just hire the world's best private investigators and tell them, Get us the absolute worst dirt you can find on this prospect, and we'll assess how bad it is? What's with all these surprises?)

Prediction: enough will happen over the next 48 hours that Palin's undeserving name will not be put in nomination. A good thing, too, since she is the least qualified presumptive Vice Presidential nominee in history, and I don't want there to be any chance of her being one weak heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

Prediction: McCain's campaign and Republican prospects will be in general disarray at that point, and it serves them right.

Prediction: the Obama folks won't have to do a thing except turn cartwheels in private.

And:

A thought experiment that is making its way around the blogosphere: imagine what the reaction would be (most especially from the evangelical right) if the Obamas had an unmarried, 17-year-old pregnant daughter whose pregnancy they tried to cover up. Can't you just imagine the barely veiled racism that would come into play?

I'm going to be pretty mean myself here, and say that we haven't had a white trash moment like the extended Palin clan in national politics since the heyday of Billy Carter.

When a poster asserted that at least Palin wasn't "covering up" her daughter's pregnancy, I snapped back:

Of course they were trying to cover it up (if Bristol is indeed pregnant, which I am by no means convinced of). They only made an announcement today in the face of considerable pressure from the blogosphere. When were Palin and McCain planning to let us know this distracting fact? Surely John McCain understands that in the modern media environment, everything will come out, everything is in the game. How could he choose a Vice President who is not only manifestly unqualified, but comes with so much garbage? Even if if he is lying and didn't in fact know about Bristol's "pregnancy" (or that Palin faked her own earlier "pregnancy," if that is the case), there is still "Troopergate" to deal with. The Alaskan legislature set aside $100,000.00 in July to investigate Palin on that point. Whatever McCain's people didn't know (and Palin might have pulled a Tom Eagleton and dissembled about quite a bit), they knew about that: it was in the news and public record. Their selection process stunk.

In my view, this disqualifies McCain (whom I have liked in the past, and would have voted for in 2000) from serious consideration for the Presidency at this point. He's not demonstrating good judgment.

Finally, I mused:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is now officially a media circus. If I was in charge at CNN or NBC or the New York Times or Reuters, I would have 25 reporters on the ground in Alaska turning over every rock and interviewing residents of tiny hamlets who probably never thought to speak to someone from another state, let alone Big Media. I have no doubt that this is exactly what is going on. I wouldn't let my people sleep till we had juiced this situation for all it's worth.

UPDATE (5/21/2009): Clearly I was wrong about a few things: Palin did get nominated; Bristol did give birth; and, although I continue to find Sarah Palin's handling of her pregnancy with Trig odd, to say the least, I propose that we concede to her version of the story (Andrew Sullivan probably wouldn't agree). I am completely unsurprised that Bristol and Levi Johnston never tied the knot. I am also unsurprised that the Palins and Johnstons aren't going away: they love the media and the media loves them. I do have to say, I think Bristol is proving to be quite a bit more impressive than her mom -- she seems to have the most graceful touch of anyone in either of these extended families.

UPDATE (7/7/2009): After Palin's bizarre resignation from the Alaska governorship, I posted a couple of comments at the Brainstorm blog:

Nutcase, pure and simple, and in way over her head. Palin is not qualified to be a dog-catcher, let alone a mayor, governor, or president. The media will always love her because she’s “colorful,” so she’s probably not going away, but I really wish she would. She has never given the slightest indication of wanting to execute the responsibilities of an office, only of wanting to win them, so this latest move is entirely in character.

And:

There was a line of thinking at one point that what Palin needed to do in order to make herself a more credible candidate for 2012 was to go back to Alaska and bone up on policy (in addition to, well, you know, governing). We know enough about Palin now to understand that would never happen even if she had a hundred years to play with; she has no interest in doing it, and probably no capacity for doing it, either. What you see is what you get, and Tina Fey’s parodic Palin is unnervingly close to the real thing.

I cannot believe that anyone would think she is a serious possibility for president. She has no appeal beyond the GOP’s rapidly shrinking “base.” She can have them for all the good it will do her.