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American Presidency: Vetting Is Fundamental
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
From The Grey Lady:
Have we learned the lesson, kids?
Palin Disclosures Raise Questions on Vetting
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: September 1, 2008
ST. PAUL — A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s choice as running mate, called into question on Monday how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket.
On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.
Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.
Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin.
Although the McCain campaign said that Mr. McCain had known about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy before he asked her mother to join him on the ticket and that he did not consider it disqualifying, top aides were vague on Monday about how and when he had learned of the pregnancy, and from whom.
While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.
At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described.
Up until midweek last week, some 48 to 72 hours before Mr. McCain introduced Ms. Palin at a Friday rally in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. McCain was still holding out the hope that he could choose a good friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, a Republican close to the campaign said. Mr. McCain had also been interested in another favorite, former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.
But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.
Perhaps more important, several Republicans said, Mr. McCain was getting advice that if he did not do something to shake up the race, his campaign would be stuck on a potentially losing trajectory.
With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later. Advisers to Mr. Pawlenty and another of the finalists on Mr. McCain’s list described an intensive vetting process for those candidates that lasted one to two months.
“They didn’t seriously consider her until four or five days from the time she was picked, before she was asked, maybe the Thursday or Friday before,†said a Republican close to the campaign. “This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe or Ridge.â€
In the final stages, two Republicans familiar with the process said, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, emerged as a key advocate for Ms. Palin.
Mr. McCain’s advisers said repeatedly on Monday that Ms. Palin was “thoroughly vetted,†a process that would have included a review of all financial and legal records as well as a criminal background check. A McCain aide said the campaign was well aware of the ethics investigation and had looked into it.
“It was obviously something that anybody Googling Sarah Palin knew was in the news and there was a very thorough vetting done on that and also on the daughter,†the aide said.
People familiar with the process said Ms. Palin had responded to a standard form with more than 70 questions. Although The Washington Post quoted advisers to Mr. McCain on Sunday as saying Ms. Palin had been subjected to an F.B.I. background check, an F.B.I. official said Monday the bureau did not vet potential candidates and had not known of her selection until it was made public.
Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, said in an e-mail message that Ms. Palin had been interviewed by Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., a veteran Washington lawyer in charge of the vice-presidential vetting process for Mr. McCain, as well as by other lawyers who worked for Mr. Culvahouse. Mr. Salter did not respond to an e-mail message asking if Ms. Palin had told Mr. Culvahouse and his lawyers that her daughter was pregnant.
In Alaska, several state leaders and local officials said they knew of no efforts by the McCain campaign to find out more information about Ms. Palin before the announcement of her selection, Although campaigns are typically discreet when they make inquiries into potential running mates, officials in Alaska said Monday they thought it was peculiar that no one in the state had the slightest hint that Ms. Palin might be under consideration.
“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,†said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor.
Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Ms. Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her.
“I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called,†Ms. Phillips said. “I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.â€
The current mayor of Wasilla, Dianne M. Keller, said she had not heard of any efforts to look into Ms. Palin’s background. And Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican Party chairman, said he knew nothing of any vetting that had been conducted.
State Senator Hollis French, a Democrat who is directing the ethics investigation, said that no one asked him about the allegations. “I heard not a word, not a single contact,†he said.
A number of Republicans said the McCain campaign had to some degree tied its hands in its effort to keep the selection process so secret.
“If you really want it to be a surprise, the circle of people that you’re going to allow to know about it is going to be small, and that’s just the nature of it,†said Dan Bartlett, a former counselor to President Bush.
Former McCain strategists disagreed on whether it would have been useful for Ms. Palin’s name to have been more publicly floated before her selection so that issues like the trooper investigation and her daughter’s pregnancy might have already been aired and not seemed so new at the time of her announcement.
“It’s a risk,†said Dan Schnur, a former McCain aide who now directs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. “No matter how great the candidate, it’s a significant risk to put someone on the ticket†who hasn’t been publicly scrutinized.
“They obviously felt it was worth the risk to rev up the base and potentially reach out to Clinton supporters,†Mr. Schnur said.
Have we learned the lesson, kids?
XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
AngelHedgie on
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Thats a tease that does its job!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/republicans/2667226/Father-to-be-of-Sarah-Palins-granchild-a-bad-boy-redneck.html
On Bristol's baby-daddy:
hilarity
Get your game on!
Oh internet, what would we do without you.
Sorta like McCain forgetting he had to pay taxes on one of his sea-side villas.
WHOOOOOPS
As I change the channel...yes yes it did
"No one will see it coming" isn't a good reason to pick someone to be your VP?
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
The best part is that the delinquency notice was issued on state letterhead...containing Palin's name.
Well, you missed a hell of a Smash Mouth show.
(I work at an ABC affiliate. There's no channel change for me.)
I want to know where Kristol gets his drugs, because that must be some powerful shit.
I defy anyone to ever find an instance of Bill Kristol being right. I've never been so baffled that a major newspaper columnist has been able to keep his job for so long, even at the paper that continues to employ Maureen Dowd.
A tidal wave that, I remind you, has still not stopped, either through merit or the sheer force of will-- "hey, guys, here's something ELSE that you could possibly call bad!" "HA HA, THROW IT ON THE PILE!"
Uh...have you been paying attention the past couple of days? There's a mountain of dirt being dug up on her. The most damning IMO is her connections to the Alaska Independence Party, which could be described as a secessionist party. As in, their central goal is to have Alaska not be a state.
Aaannnd the 80 year old stripper undid all that work.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
The real story that needs to be driven home is Palin's selection AS A RESULT of the JUDGEMENT of McCain. Every Palin fuck-up story should end with "...and despite this JOHN MCCAIN SELECTED HER."
CNN's Dana Bash looks like fish people.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
They should ask Snoop Dogg for advice on running their car wash. He did pretty well in that movie about car washes.. I think.
Well that was a safe guess
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
god damn america
So depressing.
God, not knowing your own position on something is so fucking pathetic.
hey with barr he might just dip below 45. You never know. We've had presidents win by more than 55% before
If this has been brought up I apologize.
Talking about how Palin's daughter and how it reflects the effectiveness of abstinence-only.
Um, teens get pregnant even given the best sex education, Palin is as human and prone to mistakes (as is her daughter) as anyone else.
I'm pretty sure Palin never said abstinence-only programs were perfect, just like no one with half a brain would claim a broader program is perfect.
Abstinence-only education IS stupid, but that fact is not significantly affected by Palin's personal problems any more than Clinton's womanizing has anything to do with his progressive views on feminism.
Basically what I'm saying is gloating over Palin's daughter being pregnant and going 'haha neener neener neener, your daughter got some unwed wiener' is pretty immature.
POW.
I agree here. I disagree on how Sarah Palin went all "It's obvious Trigg is my kid, because my ho-bag daughter has been pregnant longer than he's been born", basically throwing her own kid to the wolves in the hopes of cancelling out a conspiracy theory before it could find purchase.
Was this reply just an excuse for you to post that taunt without actually posting that taunt? :P
Um... what?
And yet, Clinton's womanizing had a major effect on politics in America, didn't it?
The media loves a sex story.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
The music isn't bad, and that's basically the only reason I have it on.
The notice of her daughter's pregnancy seemed to coincide with growing reports her latest child was really her daughter's.
But apparently people in Wasalia or whatever already knew her daughter was pregnant so I don't know.
I think the campaign said they revealed this now in order to end those Trig rumors.
Can we quit talking about this baby stuff, though, and leave it to the other thread?