Palin Overload

Following up my first reaction to the Palin pick... does it seem odd to anyone else that some of the very same conservatives who have been so amused by the religious fervor surrounding Obama, are greeting Sarah Palin with Hosannas and Alleluias?

Be that as it may, we are starting to get some more sober-minded analysis of the Palin pick. Much of it focuses less on Palin than on what this decision tells us about McCain. Here are some links for you.

Politico has The Story Behind the Palin Surprise as well as Six Things the Palin pick says about McCain. I like #2: He is willing to gamble, big-time.

Let’s face it: This is not the pick of a self-confident candidate. It is the political equivalent of a trick play or, as some Democrats called it, a Hail Mary pass in football. McCain talks incessantly about experience, and then goes and selects a woman he hardly knows, who hardly knows foreign policy and who can hardly be seen as instantly ready for the presidency.

Joe Klein at Time says this illustrates McCain's gunslinger decision-making style - which may not be what we need right now.

Michael Dougherty at American Conservative likes Palin but thinks she is being thrown in over her head.

Like Bobby Jindal or Mark Sanford, I considered Sarah Palin a promisingly conservative, likable, and reform-minded governor. I wished desperately to spare her (and them) from association with the bellicose and ideological foreign policy of Bush-McCain. These three governors excite various parts of the conservative base but need time to prove themselves.

Ramesh Ponnoru at NRO questions Palin's experience and asks the obvious question: Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?

No idea who this is, but somebody named Gatemouth has compiled a list of Republican women more qualified to be president than Sarah Palin.

Jim Lobe recalls that McCain has called the fight against radical Islam the "transcendent issue of our time." If that's true, why did he choose as his back-up and heir apparent a person with no experience in foreign policy, military affairs, or counter-terrorism?

Again, let me stress I like Palin. But I don't see a lot of upside to this pick because a) she does nothing to help McCain out of the hole he is in and may even dig it deeper; and 2) in the unlikely event she gets to be vice-president, there is little chance she will be able to influence the McCain Administration on the issues that matter most.