Andrew Sullivan, sticking with the anti-Palin franchise he's assiduously built over these last few months, seizes on a Palin defender's admission to Rich Lowry that "she wasn't ready for this" and writes:
If she wasn't ready for this, how was she supposed to be ready to be president? And if she wasn't ready to be president, why did you pick her?
The focus in all this - apart from getting closure on some factual questions - should be on discovering who vetted, or didn't vet Palin. This was massive political malpractice - and it's McCain's, Davis's and Schmidt's responsibility. Thank God these incompetents and risk-takers will not run the country.
Or how about just thanking democracy? McCain's and Davis's and Schmidt's decision to pick Palin was a huge political gamble. But that's the thing about gambles: you don't know beforehand how they're going to turn out. If Palin had proven during the course of the campaign that she was up to the job of being veep and maybe even president, it's a gamble McCain may well have won. But because she clearly demonstrated that she wasn't up to the job, the gamble backfired and the move wound up actually costing McCain votes. It's sort of pointless for pundits/journalists/whatever to hold McCain et al accountable for the Palin pick at this point, since the voters already did.
--Jason Zengerle