In the wake of Mitt Romney soon having to choose a running mate of his own, former presidential candidate John McCain was asked by PBS's Charlie Rose about his lack of regret for now infamously picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.
McCain stuck to his ground with his choice of Palin, despite the recent revelations that have come out after the release of Game Change, where much of McCain's former staff spilled the beans that they did not think she was remotely qualified to be president.
Par for the course when conservatives are backed up against the wall with bad decisions they've made, McCain chose to play the victim card for Palin as one of the reasons he's continuing to defend her. Because heaven forbid she and he should be rightfully criticized for the fact he should have never let this woman come "one heartbeat" away from the presidency if McCain had won the last election.
McCain asked "what the point was" that his former running mate was continuing to be savaged in the press. I guess it might have something to do with the fact that she's still fully willing to interject herself into that conversation by joining Uncle Rupert's wingnut welfare brigade over at Fox and the fact that she is more than happy to have the media reporting on whatever her latest ghost writer was posting on her Facebook page. Given the fact that Palin is apparently still craving the limelight, his protests here ring pretty hollow.
McCain can complain all he wants about how unfairly he thinks his former running mate has been treated in the media, but that will never excuse him for his maleficence and responsibility for inflicting that woman on the rest of us and on the fact that someone in our corporate media is going to pay to have her on the air even if it's not Fox. McCain has helped to dumb down the American electorate by putting Palin in the spotlight to begin with and with giving her a format for the right to be listening to her in the first place.
After hearing this interview with Charlie Rose among a number of others where he's expressed the same sentiments, it's apparent inflicting Sarah Palin on the rest of us is something he's never going to admit he was wrong for doing, much less apologize for.
Rough transcript below the fold.
ROSE: Why do you say that? Not that you shouldn't...
MCCAIN: Because she continues to be attacked. I mean...
ROSE: So you're doing that because she's attacked? You just want to stand up and say...
MCCAIN: I want to defend her. I think she's a fine and great person...
ROSE: And if you had it to do over you would choose Sarah Palin? Would you?
MCCAIN: Yes. (crosstalk) Yes.
ROSE: Even though people around you think it was a big mistake. You know that.
MCCAIN: I think in retrospect a few people around me did, but hind sight's twenty twenty.
ROSE: But Steve Schmidt was not a few people. He was a principle campaign official.
MCCAIN: But let me point out to you the following facts. We were behind before she gave her speech at the Republican convention […] She was in a debate with a very experienced politician in Joe Biden, and she beat him in the debate. She galvanized people all over America and we were three points ahead, I'll show you the pollster... we were three points ahead the day the stock market went down 700 points. The end of that day, we were down seven points.
ROSE: In other words the stock market collapse is what killed the McCain campaign.
MCCAIN: The economy has to play a role just as the economy is going to play a role in this campaign. I make no... I'm not excusing anything I did or anything I said... that will be for the historians to judge. But facts are stubborn things and that is we were doing very well, our team. I thought and still believe to this day that she had all of the qualifications.
ROSE: She'd be a heartbeat away.
MCCAIN: Let me just say this too. I have never in my life seen someone attacked as consistently and with the fervor that the left continues to attack Sarah Palin. I mean, what's the point? It's over, you know. I defend her when asked about it, but look, I think the world of her. Her husband is a fine person. She has a fine family. She was a good governor of her state. I mean... I will always appreciate the fact that Sarah Palin was willing to serve with me.
ROSE: Okay.
MCCAIN: We had to get through that.
ROSE: Yeah, I know.
