The Palin Pick -- The Devolution of McCain

In one of our many conversations as we crisscrossed the country during his campaign for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, John McCain said to me, "I've always tried to act on what I thought was the best for the country. And that has guided me.... The only thing I can do is assure people that I would act on principle."

I traveled with McCain for weeks that political season, stayed in Arkansas with him, Cindy, and their children, and - for a Vanity Fair cover profile -- filled dozens of notebooks and tapes with observations from and about a potentially heroic politician who seems far removed from the man running for president today.

Three weeks after the 2008 Republican convention, on the cusp (maybe) of the first presidential debate, it is time to confront an awkward but profound question: whether in picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain has committed -- by his own professed standards of duty and honor -- a singularly unpatriotic act.

"I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war," he has said throughout this campaign. Yet, in choosing Palin, he has demonstrated -- whatever his words -- it may be permissible to imperil the country, conceivably even to "lose" it, in order to win the presidency. That would seem the deeper meaning of his choice of Palin.

Indeed, no presidential nominee of either party in the last century has seemed so willing to endanger the country's security as McCain in his reckless choice of a running mate. He is 72 years old; has had four melanomas, a particularly voracious form of cancer; refuses to release his complete medical records. Three of our last eleven presidents (and nine of all 43) have come to office unexpectedly in mid-term from the vice presidency: Truman, who within days of FDR's death was confronted with the decision of whether to drop the atom bomb on Japan; Lyndon Johnson, who took the oath in Dallas after JFK's assassination; Gerald Ford, sworn in following the resignation of Richard Nixon. A fourth vice president, George H.W. Bush, briefly exercised the powers of the presidency after the near-assassination of Ronald Reagan.

Given that history, what does John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin -- the cavalier, last-minute process of her selection and careless vetting; and her over-briefed, fact-lite performance since -- reveal about this military man who has attested to us for years that he is guided by his personal code of honor? "Two things I will never do," McCain told me, "are [to] lie to the American people, or put my electoral interests before the national interest" -- an obvious precursor of "I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war."

McCain, I wrote for Vanity Fair, "often speaks of the duty to follow his conscience in politics, rather than polls or party discipline. This, he says, comes from having escaped death and becoming 'more aware of the transience of everything we do.'"

"I've always had a pretty good idea about how to define something as to whether it's right or wrong," he told me. "I don't mean that I'm better or worse than anybody else. I just mean that when I see an issue and think about it and talk to people, I do generally have the ability to know what's the right course of action, even if it may not be what the majority wants. So I have a certain amount of confidence that I don't have to have a majority opinion on my side."

It does not take a near-death experience to know that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be commander in chief, or that -- in choosing her -- McCain has ignored his own oft-avowed code of conduct. "McCain made the most important command decision of his life when he chose Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee," noted David Ignatius in the Washington Post. "....No promotion board in history would have made such a decision."

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Above all, the John McCain I covered in 1999-2000 was -- he said -- convinced that two factors were undermining the interests of the United States: its cultural wars, causing political gridlock in Washington and civic discontent across the land; and the unbending agenda of the right-wing of the Republican party that, in his view, had been captured by the Christian conservative movement and bore disproportionate responsibility for the poisonous state of American politics. Exhibit One: the scorched-earth campaign that George W. Bush was then waging against McCain's insurgent run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Yet, McCain, is, in fact, running the kind of campaign against Barack Obama that George Bush ran against him in 2000, which he regarded rightly as dishonest, dishonorable and diversionary in terms of the truth about him and about the nation's problems.

The conservative commentator George Will has been especially incisive of late about the "dismaying," "un-presidential temperament" of McCain and the sleazy tenor of his campaign. Karl Rove (!) has responded to the incessant lying of McCain's ads (one claims falsely that Obama has promoted "comprehensive" sex education for five-year-olds -- he had, in fact, endorsed legislation to insure that kindergartners were warned about sexual predators), by saying, yes, the McCain camp's mendacity has "gone one step too far."

Meanwhile, McCain's frequent invocations of the need for bi-partisan statesmanship are interspersed with the angry themes of cultural warfare and of the Republican convention orchestrated by his handlers, the most dominant of them practitioners from the campaigns of George W. Bush: attacks on "tax-and-spend Democrats," on the dependable liberal bogeyman, on "the angry Left," on Constitution-rewriting federal judges (including, incongruously, three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold McCain's singular legislative achievement: the campaign-finance act he authored with Democrat Russ Feingold).

"If hypocrisy were gold, the Capitol would be Fort Knox," McCain once famously said. "Some of those guys," he said, referring to his fellow senators, "have they even had lives? What have they done?" He added, "Aw, jeez, this is exactly the kind of thing that gets me into trouble." Indeed.

McCain's first choices to be his running mate were former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-Independent from Connecticut, and former vice presidential nominee of his former party. Neither passed the ideological litmus test of the Republican-Right -- "The Base" -- because each holds pro-choice views. Certainly both are qualified to step into the presidency in terms of national security credentials -- regardless of whether one agrees with their particular politics -- in the event of the death of the president. McCain's "Hail Mary" pick -- Palin -- was hastily decided on the next-to-last day of the Democratic convention, by which time it was evident that Obama's convention was winning over independent voters; all that remained was the final night and the opportunity for Obama to deliver a speech that would further work to his advantage, and debilitate the McCain campaign. Only by exciting "The Base" could McCain remain competitive and win, it was calculated.

The distance from McCain's ads and assertions about his presidential opponent and Democrats generally, and his decision to run a "persona-based" campaign, as opposed to being specific on the issues, is of a piece with his choice of Palin to be his running mate. As another conservative commentator sometimes critical of McCain -- Peggy Noonan -- has noted, the "narrative" of a life [McCain's, Palin's], takes over from existential political fact in the type of campaign run by McCain and his handlers. We have heard an awful lot in the past few weeks, especially from Sarah Palin, about John McCain "The Maverick," just as we did in the convention narrative. But what McCain has actually been doing in this campaign, rather than actually being The Maverick, is conveying the appearance of iconoclasm, and playing to the crowd. (Hence, perhaps, "suspending" his campaign -- and trying to postpone the first presidential debate while his poll numbers are sinking -- to deal with the financial crisis?) At this point, the maverick claim seems no more genuine than Sarah Palin's charade foreign-policy tour of Manhattan with no witnesses -- reporters -- permitted to observe the proceedings.

The issue of Palin's relative ignorance about international affairs and the larger world beyond America's shores (compared to previous vice presidential nominees), her attendant arrogance in seeming to revel in it, and McCain's decision to subject the country to it in choosing a possible president -- is the biggest question in this election, or perhaps ought to be. It goes to the core of who the John McCain of this campaign is.

Another conservative commentator, David Brooks, wrote last week: "Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she'd be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness."

The more we learn, the more we realize the vetting process was -- given the rush of the circumstances -- hopelessly inadequate: McCain didn't know many aspects of Palin's record or her reputation (none of which is to say she wouldn't be a congenial fit as, say, Secretary of Interior in a McCain administration). McCain's first choices for a running mate -- Ridge and Lieberman -- were light years ahead of Palin in the vice presidential-qualification department. But they didn't meet the ideological test, exactly the ideological litmus test that McCain has attacked his whole political career and told us he would never succumb to.

John McCain is a serious man, as anyone who has spent time with him knows. But he has not run the kind of serious campaign he once promised.

Not for the first time, as many of his fellow Republicans (as opposed to friendly reporters and sympathetic Democrats) had long maintained, McCain's more reckless inclinations and lesser impulses prevailed. A great political movement that would transcend rabid partisanship and hard ideology does not seem in the cards.

And if he wins the election, Sarah Palin -- who in her first post-convention discussion of foreign policy indicated a willingness to go to war with Russia over Georgia -- stands a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Ultimately it is the choice of Palin, made in the moment when action speaks loudest, that may undermine a quarter-century of assertions by John McCain about the preeminence of duty, honor and country in his political schema.

Comments

[Independent-1]

In defense of Sarah Palin's poor performance with the press.

She is not a rocket scientist, but she is talented, ambitious and sincere. She can separate her religion from her politics, as she promised campaigning for governor and her actions after election.

She has personal experience dealing with corrupt politicians in Alaska. She demonstrated a will and courage to do some house cleaning. The party saw her as a rising star and appointed her to a position on a commission dealing with oversite on natural resources. She crashed head on with another member of the commission, the head of the republican party, who was openly working for private corporations. She forced his resignation and then she resigned. She successfully won the race for governor on that reputation.

Sarah Palin was selected for the VP position by McCain to lend credibility to his claim of being a reformer opposed to corrupt politics.

Palin is now inside the McCain machine discovering she is surrounded by the same corruption she encountered on the Alaskan natural resources commission. They have feed her McCain talking points but when she gets asked a question by the press her first response is to say what she thinks . . . these guys are all a bunch of crooks.

Sarah Palin is being used and she knows it. Like I said before, she may not be a rocket scientist but she is sincere about what she believes. And she is not a good liar.

[Ironquill]

No one is asking for a rocket sceintist. What is asked is that the candidates have the abillity to perform critical thinking. On the issue of the Bush Doctrine, Palin was still unable to make a distinction between "imminent threat" and a "future" threat even after she was given the answer and had thought it over. As for her religion, it distorts her very understanding of even a straightforward science such as Geology, forget about rockets. In the league in which she is playing, her answers are not answers. "These guys are all a bunch of crooks" is barely a thought, let alone an answer. I suspect that the reason she has her husband in her state office all the time is that he is a lot brighter than she is, and can help her sort out her thoughts.

[kma1960]

Sarah Palin is not as sincere as you make her out to be, she , like any other politic abuses power to get what she wants . Like anyother hypocrit that "attends" church every Sunday and say I am sorry please forgive me, then goes out the door to do dirty behind ur back bullsh*t at anyone who would cross her.
She spent 87 days "working" at the state capital, when she should have been there everyday.
That is why they made up their little buttons asking "wheres Sarah" The s'posed house cleaning you talk about had enabled her to appoint friends to good paying jobs with no experience..gimme a break.
She gets advise from her husband. Shall I go on?
The only thing I agree with you about is , she is being used. she should have come clean and said I am out of this. I do not want any part of your lies, but did she? NO. She has lied and will continue to lie. hmmmm relgious? I don't think so. corrupt, yes she is.
She is getting her payaback - reaping what she sow's- remeber the old saying - what goes around comes around.
She just needs to shore up her dignity and bow out now, and tell the American people she was wrong. It takes a big person to admit they were wrong, and in my book she is as small as they come.

[BrickSykes]

This John McCain will be the Sorest Loser the USA has ever seen! I think there is something he is missing: He has been the subject of unbridled adulation for so long that he truly believes he is entitled to any wish he might have, encluding this one. He can't imagine 'losing' this race to Obama because Obama hasn't been a Hero like HE has! His elevation to National Celebrity which Fate and Destiny impersonally delivered to him in the 60s has been under the microscope for far too long...It has provided him a sheltered life for far too long. The American Public has tired of this brand of Worship...

Obama will Win because America needs him right now and cannot even consider being governed by anything we've ever done before, EVER!

Brick

[MGBBHC]

John McCain argued that neither 8 yrs as mayor of the largest city in America, nor his leadership post 9/11 qualified Rudi Guilliani to be president, nor did Mitt Romney's four years service as Governor of a major, populous state - yet each of these ‘unqualified’ people had more governmental experience than his pick for VP who was major of a town the size of a neighborhood in Queens for 6 yrs and has been governor of a state with the population of Hoboken for 20 mos?
Presidential candidates promise much, but the only 'presidential' decision the voters actually get to see prior to the election is their selection of a VP - and the only constitutional duty of the VP is to become president if the president can no longer function. Obama has selected an individual qualified to be a heartbeat from the presidency - McCain has not.

[BobsNotWorking]

"I've always had a pretty good idea about how to define something as to whether it's right or wrong," he told me. "I don't mean that I'm better or worse than anybody else. I just mean that when I see an issue and think about it and talk to people, I do generally have the ability to know what's the right course of action, even if it may not be what the majority wants. So I have a certain amount of confidence that I don't have to have a majority opinion on my side."

This is one of the most frightening quotes I've ever seen. I remember what it was like to feel that my own perceptions were so accurate that I didn't feel any need to have them validated by anyone. I was in my teens and early twenties. I remember what it was like because the maturing process has been gradual. It seems that John McCain has not matured beyond that state of mind. It scares me to think we could elect a man as president who feels he has such accurate perception. He seems to think of himself as something beyond just human.

[stephanemot]

McCain sold his souls to theocons. Let us not him sell his country as well.

[Lisette]

I agree with your article. McCain is indeed reckless, not a maverick.
But none of this could have happened without the support of the Republicans

McCain is a liar, and completely amoral.
This whole mess including the war is an abomination

[giveusbackourcountry]

Carl: Thanks for the great analysis. You have Palin pegged. It is so scary that the Republican Party offers this horrible ticket as its challenge to Barack Obama and that some people actually think it's a better choice than the Democratic one. I hope and pray enough people see through this charade the Republicans have tried to foist on us.

[kcam44]

MCCAIN CAMP: "She has energized the base"....well yes she has, but can the base really be this naive? Is "energizing the base" a criteria for a vote? What kind of substance does she have to offer? I feel sorry for her this Thursday as she faces BIden.

[darker]

MCCAIN = TOO MUCH BAGGAGE.
MCCAIN = TOO MANY SKELETONS IN HIS MANY CLOSETS.
Not to mention S. Palin's.

no thanks. No more years of republican shenanigans and hoodwinking the public.

I CAN'T AFFORD REPUBLICANS any more.
Republicans don't know how to govern and THEY'RE TOO EXPENSIVE.

[somedork]

Frankly, if this narrative of Sarah Palin proves to be true, that she is a severely under qualified vice presidential choice, I am insulted. As I write here:

http://www.somedork.com/daily-ramblings/john-mccain-replaces-sarah-palin-with-tina-feys-sarah-palin/
Breaking News: John McCain Replaces Sarah Palin With Tina Fey's Sarah Palin

I hope that it is merely bad political coaching. But if it indeed the fact she's a light weight, I hope this country resoundingly rejects McCain. Such a cynical pick is an insult to the collective American intelligence.

[AnAverageAmerican]

If? Are you blind? The woman is clueless! She doesn't know anything about anything...Okay, she knows about killing defenseless animals, but out side of that, nada!

[speechteach]

Is anyone else concerned about the fact that McCain's V.P. pick has to "cram" this much before taking questions from the media? She does a fair job with scripted speeches written by professional speech writers, but I would expect someone with a degree in journalism and beauty contest experience to do even better. Memorizing facts and talking points is not the same as having a good understanding of domestic and world situations. Obama and Biden have demonstrated such understatnding. If picking a running mate is an example of the President's judgement, it is very clear who is superior in that regard. McCain picked someone to just get him elected; Obama picked someone who can step in on day one, if needed.

[ZarathustraLives]

One issue which I had hoped this article would address is how John McCain can reconcile his long standing displeasure with the Christian right and his choice of Sarah Palin. Didn't he call these people "agents of intolerance"? It is becoming increasingly obvious that Republicans can no longer be elected unless they pass the faith-based litmus test of their base. As long as these circumstances persist Republicans will continue to nominate these empty vessel candidates whose obvious personal shortcomings are excused merely because they embrace a particular, radical ideology.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." -Sinclair Lewis

[becky54]

The only way we can get the rightwing fanatics out of politics is to stop the preachers from using their pulpits for politics. if they want to be political from the pulpit then they need to pay taxses for this privelage. I am so sick of the preachers useing their tax free status while preaching politics. I was once a member of one of these fanatical churches and we were told to vote for Reagan, that God wanted him to run our country. I did vote for Reagan because I wanted to be a good christian. I regretted my vote after I saw waht he wanted to do to the middle class. I did not vote for him a second time.

Reporters need to go undercover into these churches and show America what really goes on in these churches and show the pressure they place on their congrgations.

[LeftCoaster64]

You won't need to go undercover. This weekend a bunch of Christian Right "clergymen" are going to take to the pulpits and openly declare for McCain and council against voting for Obama. They should lose their tax exempt status at that point so they can spout off whenever they want. It will be interesting; an Obama administration looking into violations of tax-exempt status of churches who advocated for McCain.

[gpyc]

Well, to be fair, I think you need to recognize that the Dems have benefitted over the years from the black churches, ala Rev Jackson, Sharpton, Wright, etc.

[MizLiz]

This Garrison Keillor column about McCain/Palin is a must read:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0924keillorsep24,0,3819836.column

[rockinroll]

This needs to be said loud and more often in the media. For someone who's slogan is Country First,
His selection of Palin is all about the Religious Right. How dare he put our country at risk for his EGO and
need to be President rather than Presidential!
If this choice shows how he will govern God help us!!

[LisaLisa1234]

SavePalin: I assume you have your tongue firmly inserted in your cheek.