it came down to whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus

[kskiska]

Palin, Alone Aboard the Bus

(snip)

I’m sympathetic to Eskew and Wallace, and not just because they’re decent people. They’ve held their tongue from leaking what a couple of McCain higher-ups have told me—namely, that Palin simply knew nothing about national and international issues. Which meant, as one such adviser said to me: “Letting Sarah be Sarah may not be such a good thing.” It’s a grim binary choice, but apparently it came down to whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus. I was told that Palin chafed at being defined by her discomfiting performances in the Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Sean Hannity interviews. She wanted to get back out there and do more. Well, if you’re Eskew and Wallace, what do you say to that? Your responsibility isn’t the care and feeding of Sarah Palin’s ego; it’s the furtherance of John McCain’s quest for the presidency.

On the other hand, it had to be hard for Sarah Palin—who has achieved all she’s achieved with a highly personal touch—to take all this ridicule under an enforced gag order. After being introduced to the world as one of the “Team of Mavericks,” she’s admonished not to be one. She’s being called out by some McCainites for not cleaving to all of the senator’s positions. The Republicans who fawned over her superstar looks are now shocked—shocked!—to learn that her much-admired wardrobe has been purchased with RNC funds. I’ve heard from one well-placed source that McCain has snubbed her on one long bus ride aboard the Straight Talk Express, to the embarrassment of those sitting nearby. It has surely been implied to the governor that she should be eternally grateful to have been plucked from obscurity. And yet the high water mark of John McCain’s campaign for the presidency unquestionably began on September 3, when Palin gave her nomination speech—and ended precisely twelve days later, when McCain went off-script—I have that on the authority of the person who participated in the writing of said script—and told an audience that he still believed the fundamentals of the economy were strong.

more…
http://men.style.com/gq/blogs/gqeditors/2008/10/palin-alone-abo.html

[Phredicles]

1. So they went with "scripted ignoramus" - nice.

:P

[Bobbieo]

2. I can't wait for the day when people ask, "Who WAS Sarah Palin"?

[grasswire]

3. I do not believe that anyone who worked for Bush can be "decent"

It is impossible that anyone who worked at the level of Eskew and Wallace can be "decent."

They knew the lies. They knew the looting of the treasury, the ghoulish conflicts of interest, the destruction of the rule of law, the attacks on the Constitution. Blood is on their hands -- blood of not only New Orleans residents, American soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, but of people who have died for lack of medicine, for lack of hope.

Damn them. Call them what they are. Ghouls.

[ingac70]

4. That's why you don't pick a VP that overshadows the Presidential nominee. n/t