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CNN's Dana Bash caught Sarah Palin for an interview in Arizona yesterday before she took off back to Alaska, and Bash asked her about how she affected the ticket, referring to polls indicating she hurt more than she helped.

Palin's response:

Well, you know, I don’t think anybody should give Sarah Palin that much credit that I would trump an economic woeful time in this nation that occurred about two months ago – that my presence on the ticket would trump the economic crisis that America found itself in a couple of months ago, and attribute John McCain’s loss to me.

But now having said that, if I cost John McCain even one vote, I am sorry about that. Because John McCain, I believe, is the American hero. I had believed that it was his time. He is so full of courage and wisdom and experience, that valor that he just embodies, I believe he would have been the best pick. But that is not the Americans’ choice at this time, and realizing that, it’s time to move forward, to move on. I am certainly not one to ever waste time looking backwards and pointing fingers and playing the blame game. I’m no gonna participate in that at all.

When Bash asks her about the rumors she had "gone rogue" and become a "diva," Palin tries to laugh it off, and says: "It is absolutely false that there has been any tension."

Right, governor. Sure. You betcha.

David Sanger at the NY Times is one of those top-level reporters who often willingly carries water for the Bush administration - promulgating "unofficially official" leaks, for instance - in order to preserve his precious access. It appears that he's willing to do the same for the McCain campaign.

Hidden from view during much of the Republican convention here, a fierce struggle has been under way for the foreign policy heart of John McCain.

It centers on the deep schism inside the Republican Party over how to engage with the rest of the world, a running debate that has consumed different wings of the party and the Bush White House for the past seven and a half years. All week here, it was an undercurrent running just beneath the message of party unity and experience that Mr. McCain emphasized in his acceptance speech on Thursday night.

On Thursday night, Republicans here got few hints about whether Mr. McCain will appeal to the base by leaning toward the more confrontational, go-it-alone approach of President Bush’s first term, or whether he will adopt the somewhat chastened, let’s-negotiate tone of the second term, which has driven may of the hawks to despair.

Umm...bulls**t. It's been clear to most for some time now that the neocons won the battle. His chief foreign policy advisor is Randy Scheunemann ferchissakes!

Scheunemann told the New York Sun that despite a number of “realists” such as Brent Scowcroft among McCain’s other foreign policy advisors, his own influence, as well as that of other like-minded advisers like William Kristol and Robert Kagan, has been paramount. "I don't think, given where John has been for the last four or five years on the Iraq War and foreign policy issues, anyone would mistake Scowcroft for a close adviser," Scheunemann said, adding that even if Scowcroft were close, McCain "was not taking the advice.”

And alongside Randy stand his fellow PNACers R. James Woolsey, William Kristol and Robert Kagan.

I know that Sanger is just a channel - and that Mccain's messagers want the elecorate to be uncertain about whether he's a neoconservative warmonger himself (after his "Bomb iran" musical venture) - but this passes beyond suspension of disbelief.

If you needed another hint:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is among several national security experts helping brief Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on foreign policy issues as she prepares to hit the campaign trail while cramming for a debate with her Democratic opponent...The McCain campaign has tapped Stephen E. Biegun, the national security adviser to then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), to be Palin's principal foreign policy adviser.

Biegun is admittedly what passes for a "realist" in McCain's camp - he was until recently vice president of International Governmental Affairs for Ford Motor Company (nice bit of revolving-door back scratching, there) and was Executive Secretary of Rice's National Security Council in the two years leading up to the invasion of Iraq. A dove, he isn't. And Palin just doesn't strike me as the "realist" sort.

But Lieberman does say Palin will be neocon-ready if the ageing McCain should fail to see out a whole term.

(Previously published in a slightly different form at Newshoggers) 

      Quite possibly Quote of The Day in a Wednesday full of good quotes, including Noonan's naughty word, comes from Ted Anthony of the Associated Press:

The Republican message about the Palin offspring comes across as contradictory: Hey, media, leave those kids alone — so we can use them as we see fit.

If you doubt this scenario, consider this: On Wednesday morning, a teenage boy from Alaska stood in a receiving line on an airport tarmac, being glad-handed by the potential next president of the United States — because he got his girlfriend pregnant. TV cameras were lined up in advance. The mind boggles.

 It seems even the McFourniers at AP have had enough of the McCain campaign's bullying.

    The London Times'  US editor, Gerard Baker - as reliable a Republican booster as it is possible to find - reports that senior GOP greyhairs are worried.

While Republican delegates here rave about Sarah Palin, and angrily denounce the salubrious media coverage of her daughter’s pregnancy, a number of the party’s elders are in a state of high anxiety.

... Some Republicans are plainly upset that in an election campaign which Senator McCain himself has said turns on the central issue of national security, he has chosen someone as a potential successor in a crisis who, whatever her other talents, has no background in international affairs.

One senior Republican, a former Bush Administration official, described himself to me this week as “personally disgusted” by the selection, one that betrayed a desire by Mr McCain for short-term political gain at the expense of the national interest - wholly counter to the senator’s message hitherto.

But the bigger worry among many Republicans here is not that Mrs Palin might win in November, and prove to be ill-equipped to lead the nation should she have to after next January, but that she might lose; that the cascading revelations about her will bring down the McCain campaign.

At issue is the judgment and attention shown by the McCain campaign in selecting her.

Quote of the day:

As David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush, put it during a discussion here about the campaign: “When someone takes the rent money and puts it on black at the roulette table, and it comes up black, we don’t say “Wow! What a terrific piece of judgment."

And when it comes up on Red 13? Well, then, you try to make the election about personalities. Or to be more precise, carefully groomed public personas. Because let's face it, little we know about the true personalities of Gambler McAngry or Sarah The Book-Banning Theocrat will endear them to the electorate.

      Over at Blackfive, Uncle Jimbo is hyping Sarah Palin's position as Commander in Chief of the Alaskan National Guard to give her pretensions of national security experience befitting a Vice President.

He says that because of an Alaskan National Guard unit operating a missile defense base in Alaska she has a "unique role in our national security and homeland defense" and approvingly cites an email from one of his readers to that effect. He goes on to claim in comments that "she's privy to military and intelligence secrets no other governor is. She has to be. There's no way she could function as governor if she weren't." It's a story approvingly accepted by the likes of Jonah Goldberg and Kim Priestap.

There's a bit of a problem with his narrative though.

Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, considers Palin "extremely responsive and smart" and says she is in charge when it comes to in-state services, such as emergencies and natural disasters where the National Guard is the first responder.

But, in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, he said he and Palin play no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations.

A couple of Jimbo's commenters pointed this out to him and he his readers  (EDIT: corrected attribution) went apoplectic, going so far as to denigrate the officer in charge of the ANG.

He's the commissioner of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. The fact that he has no role in national defense activities is a given. All you have to do is read his title.

And to claim that just because the Alaska National Guard's Strategic Plan for 2008-12 was written "in line with Governor Palin's priorities", Palin herself drew up the criteria for that plan  - even though that phrase is the only time Palin is mentioned in the whole document.

What a rotten milblogger Jimbo is - or simply dishonestly defending his thesis by focusing on only one of the Adjutant General's duties. Perhaps Jimbo should have corrected his readers, but he didn't. Here's the relevant part of Gen, Campbell's bio:

Major General Craig E. Campbell is the adjutant general for the State of Alaska, commander of the Alaska National Guard and the commissioner of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. He is responsible to provide Army and Air National Guard military forces, a State Defense Force, and a Navy Militia that are fully prepared to protect Alaska from any threat, disaster, or emergency. He is also responsible to ensure that Alaska’s National Guard forces are ready to deploy worldwide and accomplish military missions in support of the national defense strategy. As adjutant general and commissioner for the State of Alaska, he is responsible for emergency services, homeland security, veteran affairs, a Counter-Drug Support Team, a Civil Support Team, and a Youth Challenge Program.

What a great way to support the military...by boosting your wingnut Veep candidate at the expense of a general with 34 years in uniform. Classy.

Crossposted from Newshoggers.

(Note: Jimbo emailed to note that I'd wrongly attributed words from his commenter "Tom W" to Jimbo himself. As of this writing, Jimbo hasn't corrected his commenter, but he has my apology for the wrongful attribution anyway. The post has been edited accordingly.)

Kyle Moore at Comments From Left Field writes:

Whether Palin was a good pick or not is not exactly relevant.  What is relevant is the nature of John McCain’s decision making in this instance.

Let that simmer with you for a moment.  At the first sign of trouble, McCain abandoned his game plan and went instead with a high risk maneuver that thus far seems to have some pay off, but is coming with a high cost.

What does that say about how he’ll behave in the realm of foreign policy?  Will he abandon any semblance of a safe and tested plan in favor of a high risk move that will put us and our families in danger?  What about terrorism?  In a McCain administration, I think that this indicates that instead of pursuing a smart and tough anti-terrorism policy, he would engage in a reckless and reactionary response that would only make us less safe and likely put us in another war.

We can discuss the lack of qualifications for Sarah Palin, and there are plenty, but the biggest problem is that it indicates that John McCain’s temperament and judgment is far below the standards necessary to serve in the Oval Office.

Kyle's one of the smartest unsung observers of U.S. politics in the blogosphere and he's hit a nerve for McCain here. Once the initial rush of stories about Palin subsides, people will be left wondering why McCain tapped her.

Even some of her own Alaskan Republican colleagues admit she's not ready for the Veep slot.

State Senate President Lyda Green said she thought it was a joke when someone called her at 6 a.m. to tell her the news.

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

It seems to have been one or all of three: 1) a vain attempt to convince Hillary supporters that the should think with their vaginas in the same way men like McCain think with their penises, 2) to shore up McCain's standing with the abortion/hangin'/guns loving and science/polar bear cub hating base, 3) an act of supreme desperation brought on by the Democratic Convention.

None of those possibilities will especially inspire confidence in him as President. But unless McCain comes right out and admit which it was then Americans have to think that, when the going gets tough, McCain will once again pull one of the flakies he's infamous for. Does anyone want to vote for a man who - when facing down Putin, Ahmadinejad or Bin Laden - is likely to just roll the dice and pull a judgment call of Palin quality out of the bag?

    John McCain has picked Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his running mate - which at least is interesting. But how is he going to justify attacking Obama on his inexperience now? Palin, if McCain wins, would be the VP to a 72 year old man with a medical history of four different cancer battles. The chances of her becoming President would, I have to say, be rather higher than those of Joe Biden. There's nothing at all in Palin's record to suggest she has the experience to run America or to be Commander in Chief.

She's not even sure what the VP does (h/t Kos)

In an interview just a month ago, she dissed the job, saying it didn’t seem “productive.”

... Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co.” asked her about the possibility of becoming McCain's ticket mate.

Palin replied: “As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”

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