January 13, 2010

I love Google, don't you? It's so handy. Why, if I were a Republican presidential nominee and I didn't know who to select as my running mate, I too might use teh Google to determine my pick.

John McCain did that very thing when he selected Sarah Palin. On the Today Show, when Matt Lauer questioned him on his pick, he said that he "wouldn't know." Jesus. McCain tried to bring up the war to divert Lauer from pushing him, and to Lauer's credit he didn't back down.

John McCain refused to comment on it. That is insane.

Lauer asked, that the vetting of Sarah Palin was so woefully inadequate that no one from the campaign traveled to Alaska to interview her husband or any of her political opponents?

"I wouldn't know," McCain said. "The fact is that I'm proud of Sarah Palin, I'm proud of the campaign we waged, she energized our party, she will be a major factor in American politics in the future, and I'm proud of our campaign."

Somewhat taken aback, Lauer told McCain that he found it "somewhat surprising" that he didn't know anything about the vetting process, adding "You were the presidential candidate."

McCain testily shot back by saying that he had no intention of "looking back over what happened over a year ago," adding, "I'm sorry, you'll have to get others to comment on it."

Really? That's all Mr. Straight talk had in him? And it's embarrassing that they were so desperate for a female candidate that they actually had to Google Chick-Repubs to see who was available.

Among their revelations is how McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, spotted Sarah Palin while searching the Internet for possible female vice presidential candidates.

"Rick Davis saw one interview she did with Charlie Rose where she was very much the Sarah Palin that people find appealing. She was lively, she was engaging, she popped off the screen. And he said, 'Wow, she jumps out,'" Halperin said.

"McCain boxed himself in. He needed a game-changing pick for vice president. And that left them with a last-minute pick of someone who was, to McCain, a virtual stranger, and was, to his senior staffers, an absolute stranger," he added.

Gawker writes:

McCain knew Bristol Palin was pregnant, Republicans insisted. But suddenly stories were all-but-implying that McCain's campaign—the campaign of serious grown-ups—basically Googled Palin a couple weeks ago and decided she looked clean enough for the job. As John Dickerson puts it, Republicans are not being complimentary when they quietly call McCain "reckless."

Why didn't Davis just go to Hannidate or Match.com to find a running mate for McCain? I'm sure Laura Ingraham would have jumped at the chance too.

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