Posted by Barry Slaff

Michael Kinsley’s August 31 op-ed titled “No Experience Necessary” (originally published here) absolutely nails the biggest problem with John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. In Kinsley’s words:

…The important point about Palin’s lack of experience isn’t about Palin. It’s about McCain. And the question is not how his choice of Palin might complicate his ability to use the “experience” issue, or whether he will have to drop experience as an issue. It’s not even about the proper role of experience as an issue. In fact, it’s not about experience at all. It’s about honesty. The question should be whether McCain—and all the other Republicans who have been going on for months about Obama’s dangerous lack of foreign policy experience—ever meant a word of it. And the answer is apparently not.

…This is especially damning to McCain because his case for himself (besides not being Barack Obama, a standard under which many of us might qualify) has rested on his honor and integrity. The North Vietnamese couldn’t break him, and neither could the Brahmins of his own party in the Senate. He was a maverick who always told it straight. So much for that.

Of course, McCain’s pick has problems of her own: for instance, this past July, she remarked that she did not know what the vice president actually does (yes, that was July 2008). Ultimately, though, McCain’s choosing Palin most notably takes McCain’s reputation for straight-talking– a reputation already severely damaged by his flip-flops on offshore drilling and honorable campaigning– and buries it completely.