Andrew Sullivan has not backed off of the story of how close we came to having Sarah Palin – a woman totally unprepared, and uninterested in being prepared, for national office – a heartbeat away from being president. He explains why it matters:
I’m getting lots of emails telling me to move on. I will. But I want to explain why I think the Palin drama is actually important. It’s not because of her: she’s a delusional, narcissistic and disturbed person who would be voted off a reality show in the first rounds. It’s because of John McCain, the Republican establishment and the mainstream media. What happened last fall was a warning sign to all of us about how corrupt and cynical the GOP, McCain and the MSM are. They colluded in such a way that this unstable, erratic, know-nothing beauty queen could actually have been president of the United States. What matters is that all those in on this scam be exposed and their way of conducting themselves be reformed until they stop risking the fate of the country and the world on their own vanities and cowardice.
Matt Steinglass makes a good argument for blaming McCain for putting Palin in the potential position to be president:
He certainly has a substantial amount of charm and an instinct for playing the press, and he’s hardly the dumbest guy in the Senate. But he is not a responsible or serious person. And to a great degree, when he met Sarah Palin, he probably felt he was looking at a younger version of himself. Which is to say that the “rot” in the GOP, the eagerness to substitute celebrity and resentful pseudo-patriotic gibberish for real political discussion, goes back a lot longer than 8 years.