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It was strange over the weekend to hear Karl Rove say that John McCain's recent campaign material had, in his opinion, crossed the line of honesty. Strange, not only that a slimeball like Rove should recognize that any such line exists (after all, if you really want to know what lipstick on a pig looks like, just picture Karl Rove in drag); but stranger still given Rove's own role in formulating McCain's new, fact-free campaign style. In his attempt to re-animate the dead, it would appear that Dr. Rovenstein has created a monster.
Every monster needs a mate, and as Rovenstein's Monster meets the Bride of Rovenstein, the mad doctor himself is not the only Republican to turn away in horror from his own evil handiwork. Conservative columnist and McCain supporter Richard Cohen writes this week in the Washington Post that the McCain campaign has grown ugly and dishonest, seizing on the Sarah Palin VP pick as evidence that McCain has lost his bearings:
McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth.... No more, though.... McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.
In today's New York Times, conservative columnist David Brooks agrees that Sarah Palin is unqualified to sit a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, taking issue with the view popular among some conservatives that America needs "rough and rooted people like Palin" serving in our highest offices rather than a separate "establishment" of professional executives:
I would have more sympathy for this view if I hadn't just lived through the last eight years. For if the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice.... And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all, it requires prudence.... How is prudence acquired? Through experience.... Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she'd be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.
At the Atlantic, conservative blogger Ross Douthat Ross Douthat takes issue with Palin's less-than-stellar performance in her recent ABC News interview with Charlie Gibson:
The most that can be said in [Palin's] defense is that she kept her cool and avoided any brutal gaffes; other than that, she seemed about an inch deep on every issue outside her comfort zone. Yes, the questions were tougher than the ones that a Tim Kaine or Tim Pawlenty probably would have been handed, but they were all questions that a vice-presidential nominee needs to be able to answer. And there's no way to look at her performance as anything save supporting evidence for the non-hysterical critique of her candidacy - that it's just too much, too soon - and a splash of cold water for those of us with high hopes for her future on the national stage.
For the monster and his bride, it would appear that the honeymoon is over.
Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com
