First it was Kathleen Parker, a conservative syndicated columnist, who said out loud that “John McCain’s current running mate” must go. What she stated about her was dead on. She makes a strong argument in her defense but concludes with this.

What to do?

McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

But the chorus is growing louder by the day as we approach the “debate” night. It is probable she may not even exceed the very low expectations. The debate, my friends, may not happen after all. So many are calling for her to step aside. I hope she hangs tough and doesn’t quit. She is insurance for the Democratic ticket.

Jack Cafferty the other day went off about John McCain’s current running mate the other day. He got a little irritated with Wolf Blitzer toward the end of this video when Wolf attempted a bit of fairness. Watch.

And now foreign affairs expert, author and CNN host Fareed Zakaria is making a strong case against her too.

Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, “to spend more time with her family”? Having stayed in purdah for weeks, she finally agreed to a third interview. CBS’s Katie Couric questioned her in her trademark sympathetic style. It didn’t help. When asked how living in the state closest to Russia gave her foreign-policy experience, Palin responded thus:

“It’s very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where—where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state.”

There is, of course, the sheer absurdity of the premise. Two weeks ago I flew to Tokyo, crossing over the North Pole. Does that make me an expert on Santa Claus? (Thanks, Jon Stewart.) But even beyond that, read the rest of her response. “It is from Alaska that we send out those …” What does this mean? This is not an isolated example. Palin has been given a set of talking points by campaign advisers, simple ideological mantras that she repeats and repeats as long as she can. (“We mustn’t blink.”) But if forced off those rehearsed lines, what she has to say is often, quite frankly, gibberish.

And as Zakaria’s concludes his column, he doesn’t point the finger at “John McCain’s current running mate,” but at the real culprit here, John McCain. As I have pointed out, a Vice-Presidential pick is typically neutral. They rarely enhance a ticket and rarely hurt a ticket. In this case, however, McCain’s pick may have a inflicted a mortal wound to this campaign.

Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints. In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true.

As a friend said to me the other day, Can we really elect an idiot to such an important office? Well I think we did: twice. And look at the current state of affairs: peace and prosperity are only a faint memory. Reading on Walden Bookstore.

Barack Obama showed what it means to lead and John McCain showed what it means to lack leadership. What is beautiful about this bailout negotiation is that it gave us a glimpse of what an Obama Presidency will look like and, God forbid, what a McCain Presidency will look like, Rep. Barney Frank put it best.

Following the meeting, Frank and Dodd implored President Bush to persuade House Republicans that the situation is urgent. “The president has got to go to work here,” said Frank. As for McCain’s offer of assistance, Frank said, “God save us from such help.”

John McCain again showed why he is fast becoming one of the least respected members of Congress. How will he regain the respect and trust of Congress after this fiasco. It will not be soon forgotten. The fact is he cannot be trusted. I have to question his mental state. His temper is legendary and it is only a matter of time before he will publicly explode. Do the American people really wanted such an unstable character with his hand on the “black box?” That should be reason enough not to support him. We already have an unstable President sitting in the White House, so it is not difficult for the voters to fathom such an event of having another unstable personality sitting in the Oval Office. This nation today is a reflection of this failed Bush Presidency.

John McCain, if he were to be elected, would certainly fail as President. He will most certainly expand the war in Iraq just to show the critics he was right.

While negotiators were working to avert certain economic disaster, John McCain was undermining an imminent deal. I have had enough of this man. Reading on Walden Bookstore.

John McCain’s Vice Presidential nominee is lying again. This time the lie is that she is accusing “Obama-Biden Democrats” of lying.

(CNN)— Governor Sarah Palin accused “Obama-Biden Democrats,” of launching a series of unfair attacks against she and her family in a fundraising email sent to supporters Monday.

“Friends, in the course of a few weeks, the Obama-Biden Democrats have launched attack after attack on me, my family and John McCain,” Palin writes in the email. “They’re desperate to win and they’ll no doubt launch these attacks against other reformers on our ticket.”

Earlier this month, the McCain campaign said its $47 million fundraising record for the month of August was due in large part to the addition of the Alaska governor to the ticket. Her presence on the campaign trail has also translated into larger crowds at campaign events throughout the country.

The email to fundraisers doesn’t specify what lies she is referring to. I am not aware of any falsehoods being spread about “John McCain’s running mate.”

So please be specific: Lying about what?

We know it isn’t about Troopergate.

That ain’t it.

We know it isn’t about “rape kits.”

That ain’t it.

We know it isn’t about selling the Alaskan government plane on Ebay.

That ain’t it.

Or refusing money for the “Bridge to Nowhere.”

That ain’t it.

There are a couple other things I would like to see explained like your relationship with disgraced Senator Ted Stevens and how it came that you received the money for the “Bridge to Nowhere” but you are able to say you said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

What I want to know is what can we believe about “John McCain’s running mate?”

Reading on Walden Bookstore.

Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, summed it all up quite nicely: “It’s over.” She was referring to the nomination of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as Vice-President on the Republican ticket. There are those that try to spin it by claiming it is “taken-out-of-context,” such as our friend Mike.

I agree with Peggy Noonan’s taken-out-of-context statement of ‘It’s over’; but not the way the Left would like.

Of course Peggy Noonan is trying to explain it away with a classic “wash, rinse and spin dry” approach. I said it but. . .

Well, I just got mugged by the nature of modern media, and I wish it weren’t my fault, but it is. Readers deserve an explanation, so I’m putting a new top on today’s column and, with the forbearance of the Journal, here it is.

And Noonan made it worse.

And when I said, “It’s over!” — and I said it more than once — that is what I was referring to. I am pretty certain that is exactly what Todd and Murphy understood I was referring to. In the truncated version of the conversation, on the Web, it appears I am saying the McCain campaign is over. I did not say it, and do not think it. In fact, at an on-the-record press symposium on the campaign on Monday, when all of those on the panel were pressed to predict who would win, I said that I didn’t know, but that we just might find “This IS a country for old men.” That is, McCain may well win. I do not think the campaign is over, I do not think this is settled, and did not suggest, back to the Todd-Murphy conversation, that “It’s over.”

But nothing.

Peggy Noonan is another victim of the “live mic.” The Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. was a victim of the live mic and got his political balls cut off. So much so that he is now “persona non grata” in the Barack Obama inner circle.

As far as Governor Sarah Palin’s speech, she did a good job of appealing to the base. Her entire speech opposes everything that the maverick Senator from Arizona, John McCain, stands for. The Republicans never were comfortable with Senator John McCain, who counts among his friends as the former Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman. I guess these turncoats hang together. They have no viewpoint. They have no political home. They have no political base. And now McCain is trying to make it all right by picking a bona fide conservative.

It seems to me that the wrong person is at the top of this ticket.

It matters little who is at the top of the Republican ticket, because Barack Obama will be elected the 44th President of the United States. America has grown weary of these Republicans.

Reading on Walden Bookstore.

I won’t comment on the McCain/lobbyist thing because the stories speak for themselves. I take no joy in these situations. I would rather candidates I support defeat their opponents on issues and on the merits, and not some avoidable scandal. But I know many are interested in the story. If so, check out the New York Times piece and then the follow-up in the Washington Post piece. Reading on Walden Bookstore.