McCain VP pick-"worst vetting ever!"

The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen writes that Republican Presidential nominee John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin was the "WORST VETTING EVER."

He writes: "

The Washington Post had an item 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 project and even told residents of Ketchikan that they weren't "nowhere" to her.... Likewise, though she cut taxes as mayor of Wassila, she raised the sales tax, making her hardly a tax cutter. [...]

McCain's campaign seemed unaware that she supported a windfalls profits tax on oil companies and that she is more skeptical about human contributions to global warming than McCain is.

They did not know that she took trips as the mayor of Wasilla to beg for earmarks.

They did not know that she told a television interviewer this summer that she did not fully understand what it is that a vice president does.

That last one was just a couple of months old. A 30-second search on Lexis-Nexis would have turned it up.

To reiterate a point from the weekend, the fact that Sarah Palin shouldn't be one heartbeat from leading the free world is obvious, but beside the point. The problem here is that John McCain's judgment is so comically flawed, the prospect of his presidency is starting to become quite literally frightening.

Even cursory vetting would have turned up some of these basic details of Palin's record. Indeed, her career in public office is so brief, this should have been extremely easy for even incompetent researchers. McCain, one assumes, would have demanded extensive background information before making a decision of this magnitude. Except, he didn't.

So, what are we left with here? John McCain met Sarah Palin in person once, for 15 minutes. Months later, he then talked to her on the phone for five minutes. Four days later, without a thorough background check, he invited her to be vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party.

Sensible people of sound mind and character simply don't do things like this. Leaders don't do things like this. Those fundamentally unsuited for the presidency do things like this.