The HBO film Game Change certainly portrays former vice presidential candidate and conservative firebrand Sarah Palin as ignorant, arrogant, erratic, impetuous and narcissistic. But the real villain in this saga is Sen. John McCain, the opportunistic mad scientist who birthed this Frankenstein and dangerously unleashed her on society.
McCain began the 2008 presidential campaign with his principles intact and maintaining his enviable maverick status. But by the time it was all over he had sold his soul to the devil while creating a landscape that could've put America in the hands of the most unqualified politician the nation has ever seen. And that's the most indicting aspect of this entire story.
To be sure, we didn't need Game Change (the book or the movie) to inform or convince us of Palin's massive failings. Just listening to her speak gets us to that conclusion within seconds. But that McCain, despite knowing how woefully incapable she was, would put her within striking distance of the Oval Office is in my opinion tantamount to treason. That he could so cavalierly abrogate his principles and risk the security of the nation purely for selfish political gain is an unconscionable, un-unpatriotic act and is glaringly in direct conflict with the phony "Country First" theme on which he disingenuously ran.
Yet to this day he ardently supports and defends Palin, as he did last weekend in an interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace: "I admire and respect her, I'm proud of our campaign and I'm humbled by the fact that I was able to give her the Republican vice-presidential nomination." He added that she was the "best qualified person."
But are we really to believe that this old-school, war-hardened career politician, one of the smartest guys out there, truly believes she was qualified for the most powerful and important job in the world in the event something happened to him? Given all that we've witnessed since, and what we now know from those inside the campaign, his behavior then, and now, is reprehensible and shameful.
McCain has made his bed and is still sleeping in it. It was and remains his choice to make Palin his legacy.
Follow Andy Ostroy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AndyOstroy
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