Sarah Palin's Drama

It has only been... What... 3 days since the announcement that Governor Sarah Palin was going to be the Republican running mate and it already looks like that decision is going to lead to the end of the McCain chance at a Presidency.
I had written previously that I was worried that Sarah Palin would affect the election - not necessarily by gaining votes, but rather convincing social conservative women that they definitely need to vote this year.

Luckily, that worry seems all but gone and if it were not for the hurricane, I would assume that it would be a complete wash by the Obama camp. In the last 72 hours, we have learned:

- John McCain in his "long search for a VP" never even bothered to check the local newspapers about Palin, as a Newspaper researcher went to Alaska and was told he was the first person to search the archives (Alaska's local papers are not online). So his "long search" was really a "hasty decision." And it is costing him.
- Sarah Palin was a member of an independence party that wants Alaska to Secede from the union that she is expected to lead. Yeah.
- Sarah Palin's unwed 17 year old daughter is pregnant, even though she is against sex education. She is "Choosing" to keep it even though she is not "pro-choice." The birth will take place when Palin would be sworn in.
- There is this awesomeness:

In her nationally televised speech accepting the job as John McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress" and opposed federal funding for a controversial bridge to a sparsely populated island.

"I told Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that bridge to nowhere," Palin said Friday in Ohio, using the critics' dismissive name of the project. "'If our state wanted a bridge,' I said, 'we'd build it ourselves.'"

While running for governor in 2006, though, Palin backed federal funding for the infamous bridge, which McCain helped make a symbol of pork barrel excess.

- Troopergate. Maybe a stupid word, but it's still a big deal. Don't believe me? She just hired a lawyer for the case. Snap.

- Thankfully the hurricane passed without much damage. However, all of this information was released TODAY with the intentions of it being overshadowed by the hurricane. While we could discuss how vile it is to use a hurricane to hide news, instead all the attention is still front page of the paper, because the hurricane did not do enough damage to take over as the sole major story.

One thing needs to be remembered here. No one is blaming Sarah Palin for this. Yes, many of these things are her own fault and attest to her character, but as governor of Alaska they were much less important. Here, the blame is on McCain, for not doing his research and allowing all of these personal things to be made public because he was trying to take advantage of women voters by choosing a woman to be on the ballot with him.

You brought this on yourself old man.