Country Last

John McCain has demonstrated, with the Sarah Palin vice-presidential pick, that these days he puts his country last, certainly behind his own ambition. This transparently political move is the antithesis of putting the well-being of the country first, especially in regard to its national security. McCain also showed how much he identifies with George W. Bush; he put her on the ticket.

Putting country first is a moral virtue. "Loyalty to the nation is a high form of altruism," wrote the famous Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in Moral Man and Immoral Society. It is not the highest moral virtue in Christian thought; loyalty to God is higher, by far. But it is a virtue because it asks individuals to be unselfish for the good of the whole nation.

The Palin pick is the antithesis of this kind of altruism; in fact, the Palin pick is selfish in the extreme. Palin was sloppily vetted, at best. As the mainstream media reported, despite the howls on the Right that actual investigative reporting is really just prejudice, there was no F.B.I. background check on Palin. Nobody talked to the major actors at the center of the Palin ethics investigation. She has been repeatedly, even in a very short time, caught in several lies, the biggest of which to date may be that she didn't say "no thanks" to the "Bridge to Nowhere" until after Congress had abandoned it, and then she kept the money.

It is not only the lack of national security vetting that raises cause for concern. There are also the lies about her national security experience. McCain claimed that "she has had national security experience," though it is now clear, only days later, that she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard.

Senator Joe Lieberman, who has served in politics for twenty years, was reported to be John McCain's own pick for VP. This is instructive. Lieberman, as a former vice-presidential candidate in the Gore campaign, has been thoroughly vetted and is experienced enough to step into the presidency should McCain, who is 72 and in remission for cancer, be incapacitated or die in office.

Who vetoed Lieberman? The campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, a Karl Rove clone, is credited with that.

But even listening to the Karl Rove clones doesn't mean you can't pick a senior Republican woman with some credible foreign and domestic policy credentials. There are a lot of Republican women more qualified to be on the ticket than Sarah Palin. Among other governors, there is Oline Walker of Utah, Linda Lingle of Hawaii, or M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut. Republican women senators more qualified than Palin are at least Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, (who would have been a very strong choice) or Olympia Snowe of Maine. The list of women representatives more qualified than Palin is very long. This list would include especially Kay Granger of Texas (almost an obvious alternative choice) or Deborah Pryce of Ohio. There's also Barbara Cubin of Wyoming or Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida. And women cabinet officers would have been excellent choices, starting, of course, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but also including Elaine Chao, Secretary of Labor, or Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education.

These are experienced Republican women, all of them in line with the party's platform. So why weren't they picked? They weren't picked because they aren't the total package of (Pentecostal) religious conservatives opposed to abortion, people who will pursue faith-based wars, in favor of teaching creation science, and opposed to the view that global warming is human-caused: in other words, none of them are totally George W. Bush. In addition, we now get Bush all wrapped up in a gun-toting, hockey-Mom identity. Besides, if you pick an experienced woman she might expect you to listen to her.

This is as crassly political decision as we've seen in American politics in a very long time, perhaps ever. And it's a dangerous decision. And I don't mean it's dangerous just mean that it is statistically likely that Sarah Palin could become president.

I think it raises questions about what McCain would do on national security. Remember the 3 am phone call ad? The question raised by that ad was 'who do you want to answer the phone?' when there is a national emergency in the middle of the night.

But the 3 am phone call reminds me that there is a second question. Who will get the next call the President makes after getting the 3 am phone call? The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State, or Steve Schmidt/Karl Rove?

The Palin pick shows that McCain's independent judgment is a myth; he is captive to political strategists as well as lobbyists. These days, I'm sorry to say that the Palin pick shows me that if McCain got the 3 am phone call, it is more than possible he would call his political strategists first.

This kind of bad judgment is a national security risk. It is not, however, the first time McCain has shown bad judgment on national security.

On March 4, 2003, as the national debate over whether or not to attack Iraq had reached a fever pitch, I found myself one of six people invited to debate the idea of pre-emptively attacking Iraq in a nationally televised Nightline Special Town Meeting in Washington, DC. along with John McCain.

McCain was all in favor of attacking Iraq, claiming "they will welcome us with open arms." The problem is, the arms he should have been worried about were the AK 47's as well as the IED's that have killed and maimed so many of our troops in this war that has now gone on longer than WWII, with no hope of anything we can call "victory." We're currently being asked to leave by the folks we came to "liberate."

In 2003, I thought that while McCain was grossly mistaken not only about attacking Iraq, but also by how this attack would be received in this country of diverse Muslim sects, he at least was motivated by concern for the nation's security.

I no longer think so. I think that McCain's 'maverick' identity is simply that he is erratic and impulsive. He can change his mind and his tune on a dime. In 2000 he called the Religious Right the "agents of intolerance," and now has put one of them on his ticket as vice-president in order to try to win. Nobody could call this altruism.

No one with McCain's long political life and national security experience could actually think the Palin pick serves the country's security.

National security considerations had nothing to do with it. John McCain today puts his country last.

By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite  |  September 8, 2008; 11:34 AM ET
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