Tried to.  I didn't get it.

Once onstage, together with Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Palin talked about what women expect from women leaders; how she took charge in Alaska during a political scandal that threatened to unseat the state's entire Republican power structure, and her feelings about Sen. Hillary Clinton. (She said she felt kind of bad she couldn't support a woman, but she didn't like Clinton's "whining.")

There now seem to be two ethic issues involving Palin and off the top of my, Kay Bailey Hutchinson would be more qualified.

I don't see this a home run and I think this one might just back fire.

Do you know anything about Sarah Palin's history in Alaskan politics?  Fighting against her own Party when it came to corruption?  I thought you, of all people, would be able to even quietly support THAT even if you won't by any stretch of the imagination support that ticket.  This Post just seems shockingly petty of you.

But your response seems to be so indicative of what we're hearing from Obama Supporters (well, some, anyway) in response to McCain's pick.

It's obviously caught them flat-footed and they're lashing out with a minimum of fact and a whole lot of assumption.

This was a good day for McCain when it should have been a fantastic day for Obama.  And Palin on the campaign trail shaking hands and selling the McCain-Palin ticket is a very powerful weapon indeed.

The Obama Camp needs to get on top of their message and on top of how they're running things.  Where's the Palin ad which would have echoed the Biden ad?  McCain had something out the DAY of announcing Biden!  

Where's Obama on this?

But Sarah Palin? C'mon... Do I want to see more women in high office? Sure I do, but not JUST because they are women.  I want qualified people whether they are male, female, black, white or purple.  The only reason for this choice seems to be that she is of the female persuasion... "neener, neener, neener".  Sick.

And what does Sarah have to do with Thomas Eagleton?

they said a young Governor of a small state with no foreign policy credentials lacked the experience to be president.... and they were WRONG.

So now, the same group is claiming that Palin is a bad choice for VP because she has the same kind of experience that Bill Clinton had, and she is only asking to be VICE president.

Update: Commenters here aren't following the news. Palin: A Scandal We Can Believe In. More here.

Palin is under federal investigation for abuse of power in Alaska.

Please warn us before you send us over to TPM - has Josh Marshall been returned from being kidnapped?

Also, I think you are trying to make the point that she is under federal investigation for abuse of power, so she must be guilty - did I understand that?  I thought this was a pro-defendant site?  Innocent until proven guilty?

I read about the trooper story over a month ago.  I doubt it's going to get a lot of traction, except on  the CC blogs.  It will be endlessly discussed there, I'm sure.

None of the links you posted say that.

She is under investigation by the Democratic legislature of Alaska because of allegations that she had her brother-in-law removed from his job as a trooper.  The investigator has said that Palin and her staff have cooperated with the investigation so no subpoenas have been necessary.

After this 'scandal' broke, her popularity ratings in Alaska plummeted to a dismal...80%.

I find it troubling that this mistake was made about legal definitions on this blog in particular.  I don't know the true facts of the case (no one at TL does either), but being under investigation is far different from an indictment, and far, far different from a conviction.  The Clintons were investigated by Ken Starr for how many months?  And at what final cost to the taxpayers?  

She felt the private plane was a waste of taxpayer money.

And Biden will look like an arse in a debate with her if he gets aggressive.

just remember that she's a pro-lifer anti UHC sorta person.

Just because she's a woman, women will flock to her like they did Hillary. How patronizing and cynical and transparent can they be?

But unlike many prominent Republicans, much less Biden, she's never dealt with national domestic issues, has a thin resume in higher office (Governor of Alaska exactly half the time Obama's been a Senator, served only two full terms in the City Council, and mayor of a town of 7,738), is Governor of the state that receives more earmarks than any other state,

She also never been tested in the grueling arena of national politics. Consider recent statements:

• Last month on Kudlow asked "what is it exactly that the Vice President does every day?"

• Said she didn't like Clinton's "whining" about how she was treated, "She does herself a disservice to even mention it really. You've got to plow through that. You've got to know what you're getting into...Any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism...I think, man, that doesn't do us any good, women in politics, women in general, wanting to progress this country."

• Today was very vocal in saying she opposed the "bridge to nowhere", only problem being that she's on the record as being very much for it when she ran for Governor.

Seriously, there's a lot of silly things being said.

Comparisons to Eagleton or Quayle are dumb. These are hardly arguments that will sway any voter. You can't deny that a conservative, younger, good-looking woman is a good pick for an old guy who is not liked by the conservative base.

On the other side: if the gender of the Republican VP will make you vote for the Republican ticket, then you are shooting yourself in the foot with a cannon. It's also reverse sexism. Someone's gender or race does not make them worse, but it also does not make them better.

1. She has terms as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, pop between 5,000 and 8,000, which is a subdivision of a borough there, sort of like a small village  inside a county,  and a term on the Ethics Panel of one of the oil commissions and eighteen months as Governor of Alaska, one budget worth. Sixty seven percent of the  Wasilla families are below the poverty line, but it should be noted that many Alaskans are subsistence in many things that do not translate to income for statistical purposes, such as that moose which undoubtedly became supper all winter for the Palin family, given the size of  a moose (tasty, my father  also did that for us, but there's a lot of scrap mooseburger in a moose and it doesn't get milder with aging). Thirty five percent commute to jobs in Anchorage.  I personally don't treat administrative experience as the mayor of Wasilla as transferrable to the national setting. I've had family reunions bigger than the population of Wasilla (I kid you not). I will look but so far I don't see reporting telling us whether there is a serious body of evidence on how well she works collegially in government with others over time, on highly disputed issues. It seems unlikely that her ethics urge would be encouraged by a McCain administration, in terms of investigating wrongdoing by Republicans. Rated as nontransferrble.

2. She is an opponent of Roe v. Wade and anti-choice, and in her inaugural speech supported the teaching of creationism in the public schools.

3. Her claim to fame is ethics investigations, principally against members of her own party, although Ted Stevens appears in many of her campaign photos. She was recently involved in a dispute with the Interior Department arguing about the absence of necessary science in the designation of the polar bear as an endangered species, apparently similar to other Republican arguments that there is insufficient science available to support global warming adjustments. She is reported to support drilling in ANWR. She participating in the  controversial granting of a contract to a Canadian company for a national gas pipeline to the lower 48 which has drawn controversy. As to oil, she has worked to get a larger share of AK revenues for Ak residents and has given a grant to residents to alleviate higher energy costs, and cancelled the (automobile?) gas tax. When the federal money for the bridge to nowhere collapsed, she declined to replace it with state money, and is said to be an opponent of pork barrel, evidenced by pruning the construction contract segment of her state budget.

4. One of her sons is about to be sent to Iraq, and she made a fact finding trip there last year which resulted in photos on the tv. No other international experience to date discovered. The day is young on discovering things about her.

5. Reporting says she is herself being investigated by the legislature for firing the local equivalent of the State Police Commissioner for not in turn firing a state patrolman who is her former brother in law.  Reporting indicates there may have been domestic violence involved there, and the question turns on whether she used her Gubernatorial position to force the BIL's boss to fire him  because of the domestic situation and canned the boss when he didn't. this investigation is reportedly ongoing as I type. Reporting says there are two ethics issues, but this is the only one I found.

6. Her most recently born son is challenged, what is reported as Downs Syndrome. I do hope this is not drawn into the race, but I have already seen one idiot claiming that she bravely chose to bear her child rather than abort him, which made the Right to Life folk proud of her. Editorially, the story made me want to vomit and I hope we note this one and find something else to talk about if that is all there is. I have known many families with Downs children, and grown Downs individuals, and all bringing it into the race will do is make for lots of stupid talk unrelated to the reality that most people are not Einstein either and there are good if difficult lives available for  Downs children and Grown Downs individuals and there is great variation in the severity of the condition from individual to individual, although the aggregate life span is shorter in some individuals owing to certain additional medical problems not uncommon  but not uniform in the Downs population,  as long as you didn't have your heart set on Einstein or nothing. I come from the Northwest, and there is no great lust there outside Microsoft to be Einstein. Please leave the child out of these discussions.

7. Her state is overwhelmingly white, with the only significant non white population group the 15% who are Inuit and other Native Americans. I have not seen any dustups in the AK press so far relating to intercommunal anything. Rated not a bad thing, the want of reported dustups, but not probably transferrable to the national scene either.

8. At one point there was a state milk company, which was owned and run by the state, which she tried to keep open when it fell on financial hard times, althought its milk was more expensive than milk shipped in from relatively nearby Washington State in the lower 48. It failed anyway and was closed, with no bidders for the assets. Rated probably a local issue which may not affect the love of other Republicans for private enterprise over all.