From Talking Points Memo:

“Earlier I noted Andrea Mitchell’s reference to reports that the McCain camp had just sent a team of GOP lawyers up to Alaska to do what I guess you’d call a post-vetting of Sarah Palin. Now George Stephanopoulos appears to have more. … The much bigger deal is the expanding trooper-gate investigation, the fact that Palin lied in her Friday speech about her purported opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere, her apparent former membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, and more.

“…What [these issues] show pretty clearly now — in addition to the news that the McCain campaign is only now sending in a vetting team — is that John McCain didn’t do any serious vetting of Palin before he invited
her to join his ticket and, he hopes, become Vice President of the United States.

“Fundamentally, of course, this is about John McCain. And the real issue here is what this slapdash decision says about his judgment.”

Once upon a time, McCain was the Maverick, the man of Straight Talk. Somewhere along the way, he got muzzled, bent - assimilated - and lost that spark that made people on both sides of the aisle warm up to him.

I don’t think he’ll win this election, especially not after this. He can’t backtrack on Palin, no matter how Britney Spears her situation gets. That would only emphasize how ill-vetted she was in the first place.