It's not about Palin; It's about McCain.

I agree with Digby, it doesn't matter what comes out about Sarah Palin.

Did she fire her Public Safety commissioner over a personal issue? So what? That's pretty much the Republican norm these days. It fits the authoritarian view of their position.

Did her 17-year old daughter get knocked-up? So what? That simply means the abstinence-only education didn't take.

The truth is, the morals espoused by the politically active Christian Right don't apply to them. Look at the stream of hypocrisy flowing out of the Christian Right and behaviour which they would wag fingers over if it was anybody else and you can see where they stand. The Christian Right isn't going to drop an axe through Sarah Palin's nomination over any particular failure because she's one of them. The Christian Right forgives their own, no matter what they do.

Anyway, the only people who make a fetish of other people's reproductive choices are social conservatives and they will forgive her anything because she's a right wing Christian. There are, of course, many many other things about Palin and her selection that are very damaging, but in my view this Jerry Springer, Jamie Spears stuff may even help her more than hurt her.

Later on Digby makes the real point. This is not about Palin; it's about McCain. And while we can all question his judgement, something else, far more terrifying is on display.

Many have observed that all this is a reflection of McCain's bad judgment, but I think it's more than that. It's a reflection of his reckless temperament, which is not something you want in a president, particularly one who has spent most of his life as a warrior and has a violent temper. (Just think about the Cuban missile crisis for a minute and consider what would have happened if an erratic, impulsive president had been in charge.) This, to me, is the central problem with McCain, and his VP choice reflects that. It's as if he woke up and said "fuck it --- let's do it!" and didn't think through the consequences. After all, he is far more likely to die in office than most because of his advanced age --- to choose someone with a gargantuan learning curve, along with all the baggage of being an unknown "first," is an act of extreme recklessness. It's almost as if he did it to defy his own mortality. (He can't die and leave the country in the hands of this neophyte.) You can't get more arrogant than that. Or less patriotic.

And the Cuban missile crisis is a perfect example of what would have happened if someone who didn't weigh the consequences of every possible action. The whole thing lasted thirteen days. If Kennedy had listened to the likes of Curtis LeMay it would have been a whole lot shorter and there is a good likelihood that nobody would be around to hold elections in 2008. It was only because the president's ExComm team developed a list of options and ground through the consequences of each that the Cuban missile crisis didn't end in an intercontinental nuclear exchange.

Do you really think someone like McCain could have or would have pulled it off?