Nope, they didn’t think to vet her:

Apparently McCain now has a staff of people up in Alaska going through things like the local papers; they aren’t online, y’see…

…the failure of the Arizona Republican to access the newspaper clippings becomes another in a growing list of revelations that calls into question just how and why he made his decision to choose Palin. A rudimentary clip search, such as this, is presidential politics 101 as campaigns not only look for the majority of background information on any high-level appointee, but also try to prepare themselves from future attacks.

and

The more I learn about this choice, the more it reminds me of Bush’s choice of Harriet Miers. I don’t think it’s at all similar in its political ramifications — Miers’ nomination was seen as a betrayal by social conservatives, the very people who are thrilled by Sarah Palin. But it is similar in the manner in which each was chosen. In each case, the person who made the choice had wanted to pick someone else, someone he regarded as a close friend., In each case, he was told that he couldn’t choose that person because it would be politically disastrous. In each case, the person who made the choice responded not by sitting down and thinking about who might fill the role s/he was to be nominated for with distinction, but by making a quick and ill-considered choice of a plainly unqualified person, a choice that seemed like an insult to the office that person was nominated to fill.

Moreover, in each case that choice reflected the fact that the person making it was chafing at the discipline required of him. As far as I can tell, Bush reacts very badly to the idea that his powers as President are limited in any way, or that he owes anything whatsoever to his party or his allies. McCain is similarly undisciplined: he has been willing to do what his party requires of him, up to and including sacrificing his honor and his principles, but he visibly bridles at it, and he seems to be thrilled at the chance to be a maverick again. If that requires picking a vice presidential nominee who is wholly unprepared to take over as President, without doing anything like the vetting a Presidential campaign would normally require, then so be it.

Picking Palin without doing a thorough background check first is of a piece with this: chafing at discipline, playing the odds, liking to bend the rules and get away with it, wanting to be a bad boy. These are not character traits I’d like to see in a President.

There is a present story that is swirling around the internet and the newspapers that hasn’t come up in the US news that much.   I don’t know what to make of it.  It’s almost Edwards-eque if true, mostly for the kabuki of far-right-family-values involved that would tear Palin’s veracity and theocrat cred apart.  It would be hard to prove, of course, unless an insider spoke up.  if it’s crap, it’s nasty and I want nothing to do with it.  And the only way it becomes anyone’s business is that you don’t put yourself up as a paragon of virtue and honesty unless you live it according to your own rules all the time.

No, I won’t link to it. if it’s true, the whole thing will out without me adding to it.   If true, it adds to the level of Eagletonian idiocy involved on the part of the campaign and for Palin about picking people based on some gut feeling.  And that’s scarier to me, personally, in regards to John McCain.  I want someone a whole lot steadier, who won’t make such wild gambles for the heck of it.

It was obvious early on that George McGovern was not going to beat Richard Nixon in 1972. When all the big names in the Democratic party turned down the VP slot (like Ted Kennedy, Birch Bayh and Hubert Humphrey), McGovern tapped little-known Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton to be his running mate

Eagleton, like McGovern opposed the Vietnam War. He was selected on July 14 with virtually no vetting. Eagleton did not tell the McGovern campaign about his hospitalizations for depression, which included shock therapy treatments. Within days, the papers revealed them to a caught-off-guard campaign. Initially the McGovern people downplayed the story and said they were “1000% behind Eagleton.” But the press (as always) was relentless and the story did not go away. By August 1st, 18 days after he was picked, the damage was done and Eagleton withdrew at McGovern’s request. He was replaced by Sargent Shriver, Maria Shriver’s father.

McGovern’s handling of the controversy was an opening for the Republican campaign to raise serious questions about his judgment. McGovern went on to lose in one of the biggest landslides in American electoral history.

As a side note on Eagleton, Bob Novak (yes that Bob Novak) wrote in a April 1972 column that an unnamed Democratic senator had talked to him about McGovern. “The people don’t know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion and legalization of pot,” the Senator said. “Once middle America – Catholic middle America, in particular – finds this out, he’s dead.” Novak’s accusation stuck and McGovern became known as the candidate of “amnesty, abortion and acid.” In July 2007, Novak revealed on Meet the Press that the unnamed senator was Thomas Eagleton. Talk about a train wreck for George McGovern.  And poor vetting.

In short, Eagleton savaged McGovern to Novak, creating a famous tagline that battered McGovern, and felt safe that that comment would be forever hidden – and then turned around and campaigned for the job of VP – and lied to McGovern’s people when they asked him about any problems they should know about.    McGovern expressed it this way a few days ago in the NY Times:

When I arrived in Miami on the Sunday before the Democratic convention in 1972, I had yet to select a running mate. I had already asked Ed Muskie, the senator from Maine, and Hubert Humphrey, the 1968 nominee and my longtime friend, if they would be on the ticket with me. Each had said no.

So at the convention, I met with my staff in my hotel room on Thursday, the day after I was nominated. We had until 4 p.m. to find a vice-presidential nominee.

My first pick that morning was Senator Ted Kennedy, whom I had called the night before. He declined, and instead suggested that I pick Senator Tom Eagleton of Missouri, who was openly campaigning for the post. I rejected the advice because I didn’t know Eagleton very well.

My next choice was Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps and Senator Kennedy’s brother-in-law, but I could not reach him because he was in the Soviet Union. So I called Walter Mondale, another Senate colleague. Like Senator Kennedy, he said no and recommended Eagleton. I still felt unsure.

Then I turned to Abe Ribicoff, a senator from Connecticut and another longtime friend. He said it would be an honor to be the first Jew on the national ticket of either party, but he was about to marry. “I just can’t cancel a honeymoon and take on a national campaign,” he told me.

Gary Hart, my campaign manager, suggested Kevin White, the mayor of Boston. I called the mayor and asked him if he would be interested. He gave an emphatic yes.

Almost immediately, Ken Galbraith — the Harvard economist, one of the leaders of the Massachusetts delegation and a close friend — called to say that I couldn’t possibly pick Kevin White because he had backed Muskie during the Massachusetts primary. “If you pick him our delegation will walk out of the convention,” Ken said. I told the mayor we could not go forward with him.

Frank Mankiewicz, my political director, said with a wry smile: “Walter Cronkite was just named the most admired man in America. How about him?” We let this intriguing possibility pass as too unrealistic. I later learned from Walter that he would have accepted. I wish we had chosen him.

Instead I called Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin and my closest friend in the Senate, and pleaded with him to bail me out. “I’m afraid you might win and then I’d be stuck with that damn job as vice president,” he said. “No, thanks.” He recommended Eagleton.

At 3:45 p.m., I called Senator Eagleton. He accepted, and then told Frank Mankiewicz there was nothing in his background that would be considered troublesome. History would render a different judgment.

You’d think people would learn sometime….