Country First

John McCain knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is something he will have to live with. He put somebody unqualified on that ballot and he put the country at risk, he knows that.

So says "prominent Republican political consultant" Matthew Dowd, peering, Putin-like, into Senator McCain's soul. Gut, or whatever.

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even I could see that the AK Gov. was an unmitigated disaster from the get-go. I still find it difficult to believe that anybody was even halfway impressed by that ridiculous speech at the Republican National Convention.

But that's nothing. How can anybody in good conscience support as a potential vice president — president, in fact — somebody who, when faced with a legislative report finding an abuse of executive power by way of a statutory violation, blithely claims she was cleared of all wrongdoing by that same report. That's pathological denial.

It's a mystery to me. Had to have that "Family Values" ticket, I guess.