From Todd Purdum’s new piece in Vanity Fair …
None of McCain’s still-loyal soldiers will say negative things about Palin on the record. Even thinking such thoughts privately is painful for them, because there is ultimately no way to read McCain’s selection of Palin as reflecting anything other than an appalling egotism, heedlessness, and lack of judgment in a man whose courage, tenacity, and character they have extravagantly admired–and as reflecting, too, an unsettling willingness on their own part to aid and abet him. They all know that if their candidate–a 72-year-old cancer survivor–had won the presidency, the vice-presidency would be in the hands of a woman who lacked the knowledge, the preparation, the aptitude, and the temperament for the job.
It’s a high bar to find shocking new revelations about Palin’s character and political identity. But this piece may bring home how truly shocking a decision it was for McCain to pick Palin. Not a bad decision or an ill-considered one, but one that in single stroke showed McCain had no business being president. An angry, resentful, small-time crooked pol. And she really could have been president because of McCain’s recklessness. Read Purdum’s piece. But I have little doubt and some direct knowledge that we’ll be hearing new shocking details of who this woman is for months, perhaps years, to come.
Listening to the commentary on the Ed Show right now, I think the idea is that getting a 60th senator really puts the Dems in a tough spot. Didn’t realize it was such a bad thing for them.
The Top 10 Best Moments of the Franken-Coleman post-election saga.
We’ve received a report that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) was taken this afternoon to Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles.
We contacted Waxman’s office in order to confirm the story. A source in the office confirmed to us that the Congressman wasn’t feeling well today, and went to a hospital for what were described as routine checks. Further details were not immediately available, and the source was unable to confirm which hospital Waxman was taken to.
(ed.note: Additional reporting by Eric Kleefeld.)
There was a lot of high octane political news today. And with all that going on, I fear some of you may have missed this great piece we published this morning by TPMMuckraker’s Zack Roth and TPM Research Intern Pete Martin. As Roth and Martin explain, the Republican faction on the Commission, operating on an ideological opposition to the very concept of campaign finance regulation, have essentially put the FEC out of the enforcement business.
Images of the day US combat troops withdrew from cities across Iraq and Iraqis celebrating the day.