The Blog @ Spolitics

McCain Camp Goes On the Attack…Against Their Own Running Mate

We started to see signs of this a couple of weeks ago and a McCain insider warned us it would only get worse after the election.

Ross Douthat pondered (twice) whether McCain would ruin one of the Republican party’s rising stars by selecting Palin to be his running mate. Some in the McCain camp are now trying to pin the loss on her and doing it in a rather vicious way.

The prime suspect appears to be Nicole Wallace who deservedly took heat for rolling Palin out to the press in such a disastrous way. When the press was trying to build a narrative around the idea that Palin wouldn’t talk to them, Wallace fed it and substantiated it and she did it with a dash of arrogance. She hurt Palin’s cause from the outset and then sent her into two high-stakes interviews where Palin arguably bombed.

But what’s really distasteful about all this is that, for most of the campaign, McCain supporters felt like he never took the gloves off and went after Barack Obama with vigor. Now that’s it all over and his campaign has lost, cowards hiding behind anonymity are attacking Sarah Palin with more ferocity than anything they threw at their opponent. It’s disgusting. If she’s as bad as they say, then the blame lies with them for putting her on the ticket in the first place and then trying to convince the rest of us to vote for her. Why not resign in protest? Country First, remember?

Another thought: If they were so sure Palin was a rube, why on Earth did they throw in her into the deep end by scheduling her first two interviews with Gibson and Couric? Why not ease her into it? These leaks have CYA all over them.