No Accountability

This is depressing.

I think Gov. Sarah Palin is a bright and likable politician. She has a lovely family, and they are due privacy and respect. Her resume doesn’t have nearly enough meat to it to qualify her for vice president, in my opinion, but I know there are plenty of people who say the same about Barack Obama’s qualifications.

It just is kind of painful to see a promising career being trashed by the Republican Party.

That’s not a typo. The McCain campaign is lashing out at the media, as they’ve been lashing out at liberal bloggers and the Obama camp, trying to whip up a backlash against legitimate questions surround Palin and the McCain vetting process.

But it’s not the media or political opponents who are really doing the damage here.

By any standard, McCain botched his selection. Even if you accept the premise that Palin is qualified and her various issues are not serious enough to disqualify her, can anyone argue that McCain shouldn’t have handled this better? Made the decision earlier so that some of these issues wouldn’t be a huge distraction during the convention, maybe? Huddled with Palin more than one brief meeting in February so she’d be prepared for the media onslaught? Float a trial balloon, as he did with a possible Lieberman pick?

Instead, we’ve had a media circus entirely created by the McCain campaign’s incompetence. And what has that campaign done to address the questions that have come up? Have they had Palin sit down with select reporters to answer questions? Have they had a press conference? Have they even let her speak?

No. They’ve hidden her away, started stonewalling, hired the lawyers, and unleashed the GOP surrogates to attack the media and try to muddy the issues.

It’s really kind of disgusting. And it’s exactly the same Rovian, deflect-accountability-at-all-cost mindset that we’ve seen so often from the Bush Administration.

Do we really want another administration like that?

Palin will most likely give a good speech tonight. And the Republican faithful will continue to do their admirable mental gymnastics in embracing a political neophyte as the possible next President of the United States, an abstinence-promoting Family Values candidate with her own personal issues, a straight-talkin’ reformer who hides from the press and the American people.

It’s quite a spectacle.

Whatever Sarah Palin’s done, she doesn’t deserve this. And she has Sen. McCain, and the Bush GOP, to thank.