Say Anything Blog

After a couple days of Palin-bashing the media is feeling pretty triumphant, and now the “will McCain drop Palin” meme is sneaking into the nation’s punditry.

My first reaction is to say that if McCain drops Palin, who represents the only person to excite the conservative base since about 2005, he’s dead in the water.  The backlash from conservatives would be swift and terrible.

My second reaction is, what has the media really told us about Palin that makes her unacceptable as McCain’s VP?  As Allah at Hot Air explains:

What does the media have to show for all these breathless scandals they’ve dug up? We found out her daughter’s pregnant, but McCain probably knew about that in advance; in any case, the base has rallied around her in the aftermath and independents are unlikely to care two months down the road. We found out she was once a member of the Alaska Independence Party — except that, er, she wasn’t, and as Smith notes, it’s not nearly as fringe a party as one might think. We found out Todd Palin had a DUI back when Wham! was still together. We found out she flip-flopped on the bridge to nowhere, which would sting if not for the fact that she flip-flopped in the right direction and ended up torpedoing it. We found out she requested earmarks as mayor of Wasilla in the fine tradition of The One, who also claims to stand for “Change.” We found out she hopes God approves of what our soldiers are doing overseas. And as to the one big story that’s cooking, Troopergate, we found out nothing: She has a private lawyer now and the Democrat in charge of the investigation is trying hard to make Republicans panic, but like the Bristol Palin news, this is one thing McCain probably did vet thoroughly given the stakes.

When the smoke clears I think Palin is going to be just fine.  In fact, I think the only thing Republicans are going to regret about their 2008 presidential ticket is that John McCain is on top of it.