Just how reckless and callous U.S. Sen. John McCain was about the national interest when selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate is finally chillingly clear.
Palin, whose paucity of knowledge of history, politics and geography, not to mention foreign relations, reduced her to being a perky airhead who was literally picked from a lineup on the Internet.
In a new behind-the-scenes book about the 2008 presidential campaign, "Game Change," and in Sunday's CBS "60 Minutes" interview, McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt leaves no doubt about the cavalier reason McCain and his aides picked Palin: "Wow, she jumps out" of the TV screen during a single appearance that campaign manager Rick Davis saw on the Internet, according to Schmidt.
Then the calamity of fielding a last-minute, know-nothing candidate struck. Schmidt reveals that while preparing for the national debate, handlers learned Palin didn't know why there was a North and South Korea or who the U.S. was fighting in Iraq, though her son was being deployed there. She confused Joe Biden with Barack Obama, continually calling him "O'Biden," and had to be told about the Cold War.
This horrifying portrait of an unprepared and incurious candidate who could become president is the more shocking because of McCain's utter disinterest. The onetime POW showed an appalling lack of concern about his selection.
On Tuesday, when asked about the new revelations that Palin was not vetted before her selection, McCain said on NBC he didn't know about that process "nor care."
Obviously, McCain placed himself and the desire to win above his country.
