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Did McCain Bother to Vet Palin at All?
Taylor Marsh — BY TAYLOR MARSH Experience? Who needs it? Marc Ambinder lays some of it out. She just doesn’t live up to her marketing. ...

What McCain Didn't Know About Gov. Palin....
The Atlantic Politics Channel — and why he probably would have picked her anyway. A web dispatch.

What Does She Believe In?
Balloon Juice — ... I guess someone has to do it, since the media is not, but I think we need to create a place to document Sarah Palin’s known thoughts on current issues. I have no idea what her thoughts are on a wide range of issues, and all I really know about her is that she milked some more money out of the oil companies and is a non-denominational evangelical and once was runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant (although, in fairness, it appears I know more than the McCain campaign did when they chose her). Other than that, she is just a blank slate. ...

Palin was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it
Hot Air » Top Picks — ... replied, “I don’t want them thinking when I’m done being governor that it’s normal to have a chef. It’s OK for them to have macaroni and cheese.” That’s worth twice as much politically as the bridge to nowhere meme; I don’t know why the GOP isn’t pushing it harder. But then, I also don’t know why they’d let her go out there and tout her actions on the bridge to nowhere in her announcement speech on Friday knowing — presumably— that she had initially supported it. Exit question from Marc Ambinder , who casually smears Palin as an ...

Worst. Vetting. Ever.
Political Animal — ... yesterday quoting multiple McCain campaign aides who insisted that thorough vetting had been done on Sarah Palin. "Nobody was vetted less or more than anyone in the final stages, and John had access to all that information and made the decision," Rick Davis said. If that's true, John McCain is overseeing the most incompetent political operation in recent memory. These guys had very little idea who Sarah Palin was before putting her on the national Republican ticket. They've bragged that Palin opposed the famous "Bridge to Nowhere," only to learn that Palin supported the ...

Basic Incompetence From McCain
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — ... Marc files a dispatch on McCain's minimal vetting of Palin. All you can say from this - regardless of what happens with this Desperate Housewives subplot beginning to play out - is that McCain is more incompetent as an executive than Bush: ...

What McCain Didn't Know About Palin
Hoffmania! — ... Ambinder lists the charges. McCain's campaign is learning as much about her from the media and from Democrats as they are from what minimal political preparation they had. They've bragged that Palin opposed the famous "Bridge to Nowhere,"  only to learn that Palin supported the project and even told residents of Ketchikan that they weren't "nowhere" to her. After the national outcry, she decided to spend the funds allocated to the bridge for something else. Actually, maybe it's more fair to say that coincident ...

What did McCain know about Palin?
Daily Kos — Apparently, not much. They've bragged that Palin opposed the famous "Bridge to Nowhere," only to learn that Palin supported the project and even told residents of Ketchikan that they weren't "nowhere" to her. After the national outcry, she decided to spend the funds allocated to the bridge for something else. Actually, maybe it's more fair to say that coincident with the national outcry, she changed her mind. The story shows her political judgment, but it is not a reformer's credential. Likewise, though she cut taxes as mayor of Wassila, she ...

Pataki Is ‘Not Concerned’ That Palin Doesn’t Believe Global Warming Is ‘Man-Made’
Think Progress — ... right. And I think that when it comes to the transition to this new technology and the new economy, we will have, we do have to drill. Despite the fact that 61 percent of Americans believe climate change is affected by human activity, Pataki claimed later in his answer that conservatives like Palin “are in better tune with the American people when it comes” to energy issues. Watch it: Apparently taken off guard by Palin’s climate change skepticism, the McCain campaign is now trying to ...

Reports: McCain camp only starting to fully vet Palin now?
Hot Air » Top Picks — ... are also reporting that McCain’s people are on their way up there to try to beat the press to any hidden dirt. 3. Marc Ambinder claims to know from sources inside the McCain campaign that they’ve already been blindsided by the fact that she requested earmarks as mayor of Wasilla, that she supports a windfall profits tax, and that she doesn’t believe in man-made global warming. I’m skeptical about the last two; her positions are easily researchable on Google, as is the fact that she initially supported the bridge to nowhere. But like I asked this morning, if they knew about ...

Meltdown
Shakesville — So, in my earlier CifA piece regarding the annoucement of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, I said: If there's any political point to be made here at all, it is about the very real possibility that the McCain campaign did not know about this pregnancy, despite reports to the contrary. There is a whole lot McCain evidently didn't know about Palin – and there have been reports that McCain chose her for the ticket after a half-assed vetting, about which even Republicans outside of DC have been grumbling. But even that is predicated on the idea that an ...

Palin (and McCain) in Loads of Trouble...
The BRAD BLOG — ... that after McCain's first choices of Lieberman and Ridge were nixed by the wingnuts, he caved to them, and hastily installed Palin with virtually no vetting whatsoever. Add that to what's already known about McCain's flubbed roll out of Palin (she was in favor of the "Bridge to Nowhere" before she was against it, she raised taxes even though they said she was a tax-cutter, etc.) and this Veep nomination is clearly in trouble ...

Matt Lewis: Vetting for Palin?
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — ... | [image] Blog [image] | Your Blogs | Issues | Get Magazine [image] [image] Hugh Hewitt | Mike Gallagher | Michael Medved | Mary Katharine Ham | Kevin McCullough | Matt Lewis | Radio Blogger | Your Blogs Directory [image] Tuesday, September 02, 2008 Vetting for Palin? Posted by: Matt Lewis at 11:38 AM Marc Ambinder has a new piece out entitled "What McCain Didn't Know About Sarah Palin" [image] Email It | Print It | ...

MSM’s War On Palin
Electric Venom — ... Style but no Substance Analysis: GOP Struggles With Identity on Palin’s Big Night Will Her Gender Sway Women to Palin? From MSNBC: Before Speech, Palin Gets Some Coaching Bristol Palin Pregnant — Right Now Palin is McCain’s Boldest Gamble From Slate: Name Bristol’s Baby Contest From The Atlantic: What McCain Didn’t Know About Palin If MSM can’t see their own bias, how ...

Kathleen Reardon: McCain's Mockery of Women
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... There aren't enough days in the week, weeks in a month, months in a year to get Sarah Palin up to speed. McCain knew this. In fact, it's reasonable to believe that he didn't properly vet her because he wanted to know as little as possible. ...

Rachel Sklar: Sarah Palin, You Owe The Media An Apology
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... the next few days as the press tried to find out who this newly-announced VP nominee actually was, but certainly not with any help from the nominee herself: By Wednesday, Sept. 3rd, when Palin strode to center stage at the Republican National Convention, flanked by her sparkling extended American famiy, she still had not made herself available for any interviews or presented herself to be vetted in any way, shape or form. Back then we didn't know that John McCain hadn't vetted her, either. We didn't know about Troopergate. We didn't know that she was ...