Bush League

As the McCain campaign's operators are finally free to turn on one another fully, the complete scope of Sarah Palin's...I struggle for the right word...unfitness to serve in high national office is emerging more fully.

This video from Fox, linked through TPM, runs the gamut. It suggests the Palin couldn't name the three countries involved in NAFTA. Believed Africa to be a nation, rather than a continent. And of course, couldn't explain the Bush doctrine to Charlie Gibson. Incredibly, Fox goes on to suggest that the McCain campaign can't really be faulted for this, because this level of ignorance in a state governor is inconceivable.

This longer clip from the same interview also discusses how, during the last two weeks, she would fly into what aides describe as "tantrums" upon seeing her morning press clippings, with items being thrown about the room and reducing at least one staffer to tears. It got so bad that McCain wouldn't allow her to do interviews on her own, actually curtailing her air time when he couldn't be there.

John McCain, RNC,right wing pundrity, et al: you nearly put this woman in the White House, behind a 72 year old man. Really, think about that for a moment.

Palin apparently returned to Alaska today, and was greeted by "dozens" of supporters chanting "2012." Watch that underwhelming video here. According to the NYT, she has been deluged with interview requests, but has so far been hiding from the media, not even appearing at work today.

Adding insult to injury, an RNC lawyer has been dispatched to Alaska to retrieve some of the 150k worth of clothing that apparently somehow found its way back to the frozen North with the governor. Read about this embarrassment here.

Palin's personal troubles aside, the Republican party seems to be on the edge of a vast wilderness if this, this, this, or this, story are at all correct.

The leadership struggles and infighting over who lost what for whom are all very nice, but the problem seems to run much deeper. Palin was far more popular on the campaign trail than McCain was. We all saw her campaign. Where, exactly, would Colin Powell fit in her worldview? Or Edmund Burke, ideological founder of conservatism, for that matter. I'm hardly the first to suggest it, but Palin isn't capable of even pretending to appeal to intellectual conservatives. Unless they happen to be moose hunters.

She is, truly, a fitting addition to the Bush league.

** Update **
On CNN, Palin claims these stories are products of rumor being spread by upset former staffers.

Having slept on this post, I'm not half inclined to wonder if she might actually be right on this one. Fox may have had a point- could she really have believed Africa to be a nation? Could anyone be that out of it?