Fox News Points Out How Scary It Was

I know it's post-election, but Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron revealed information that makes it clear the choice of Palin was an outrageously dangerous one that could have put the entire country at risk if McCain had been elected. No matter who you voted for, no one should ever, ever nominate someone whose ignorance is so extreme.

According to Fox News - Fox, the right wing lap dog -

The McCain people felt Palin lacked "a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, a heartbeat away from the presidency"

Partly because

Palin didn't understand Africa was a continent, or a series of countries. She thought it was 1 country in itself. She actually asked her aides if South Africa wasn't just a part of the country of Africa.

She had no idea which countries were in NAFTA(the US, Canada, and Mexico - DUH!). She couldn't name the countries in North America.

She was totally unfamiliar with basic conservative philosophical positions, like American exceptionalism.

She had "real problems" with basic civics, governmental structures, municipal/state/federal governmental responsibilities.

McCain wouldn't even let her go on O'Reilly - according to O'Reilly - unless McCain was sitting beside her to bail her out should her ignorance get her in trouble.

She refused preparation help for the Couric interview, then blamed her staff when she self-destructed.

Again according to both O'Reilly and Fox News' Cameron, Palin cracked under the pressure of the campaign. She threw tantrums, screaming and throwing things, when she viewed negative press clippings. She cracked over the 'pressure' or bad press? God forbid what would happen if she had a real crisis to deal with.

She was so angry and nasty towards her staff she reduced them to tears.

One of the stories the McCain camp tells now to show how Palin was clueless, is of the time the campaign went to her hotel room to pick her up and she greeted them at the door wrapped in a towel, having just stepped out of the shower.

She was a shopaholic who would go out and buy clothes even after the McCain campaign provided her with that $150,000 wardrobe. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast.

This isn't about clothing, it's about deceit. Just like hiding her emails.

To McCain's credit he did not know about this. Aides knew he'd be pissed at the clothes shopping, so they kept that information from him. McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin and vetoed her request to speak at his concession speech.

Remember, the sources for this information - Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, the McCain campaign. Not the 'liberal media'.

But this was beyond selecting an incompetent running mate. This was about making a crass political decision that willingly put the country at risk merely for political gain.