The Milquetoast Maverick

Setting aside Sarah Palin's ethical problems, pork project funneling, and the laughable job of "vetting" that was done in the rush to add her to the ticket, this story is a sobering look at the judgment that that John McCain is so desperately campaigning on:

Up until midweek last week, some 48 to 72 hours before Mr. McCain introduced Ms. Palin at a Friday rally in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. McCain was still holding out the hope that he could choose a good friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, a Republican close to the campaign said. Mr. McCain had also been interested in another favorite, former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.

Perhaps more important, several Republicans said, Mr. McCain was getting advice that if he did not do something to shake up the race, his campaign would be stuck on a potentially losing trajectory.

With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later. Advisers to Mr. Pawlenty and another of the finalists on Mr. McCain’s list described an intensive vetting process for those candidates that lasted one to two months.

“They didn’t seriously consider her until four or five days from the time she was picked, before she was asked, maybe the Thursday or Friday before,” said a Republican close to the campaign. “This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe or Ridge.”

This is the who Joe Lieberman (consider the source, I know) thinks "is his own man?"

He threw over the people--even you, personally, Joe--that he felt were best qualified and most desirable for his administration in order to kow-tow to anti-choice zealots with someone he hardly knows, and you laud him for being "his own man?"

The makebelieve Maverick is looking a helluva lot more like Daddy Dobson's man from where I'm sitting.

Following the divisiveness of the primaries, and the exceptional speech given by HRC at the convention, the pressure for Obama to reconsider the "Dream Ticket" must've been considerable. It would've been the mother of all olive branches to the still-substanital--not to mention, still stewing--base of Clintonista voters and donors. While, admittedly, not a perfectly analogous situation to McCain's, he looked a similar moment of pander in the eye and

He.

Didn't.

Do it.

Whereas Johnnie Mac did his best impression of a card table, and folded.

To appropriate a saying: No judgment. No Spine. Not ready to lead.