Republicans: Choose first, vet second...

[regnaD kciN]

From Josh Marshall over at TalkingPointsMemo.com:

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. George says the McCainers are sending a "rapid response team of about ten operatives that includes lawyers" to do the aforementioned deeper vet. A lot of attention is being given to Gov. Palin's daughter's situation. 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. Individually, you can come to your own judgment about how consequential these stories are. What they 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.

So, after the Obama campaign ran a structured, thorough vetting process prior to Obama's selection of Biden, the McCain campaign did it the other way around: choose a running mate first, then get around to vetting them.

The key question: Is this yet another case of Republicans doing everything backwards?

[mwb970]

1. I think she was vetted by some wacko religious council.

The CNP, was it? Dobson and the like. Trouble is, they only checked her for religious wackiness, which she passed easily. Who cares about that other stuff besides a bunch of godless liberals anyway?