Richard Cohen, longtime leading liberal McCain fan, on the op-ed page of today's Washington Post:
McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though...
...McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.
And here's conservative David Brooks on Palin in the NYT:
Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she'd be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.
It may not sound it on the basis of that one graf, but this is Brooks' anti-Palin column. He's off the bus. Understand how much Brooks used to admire McCain. Back in the 1990s he and Bill Kristol built an entire theory of conservatism around the idea that McCain would embody it and make it manifest.
Interesting that Kristol, after stating his preference for Joe Lieberman as McCain's veep, has nevertheless jumped feet first on the Palin bandwagon, while Brooks has now jumped off.
