Top McCain Aides: 'Palin Simply Knew Nothing About National And International Issues'

Huff-Nicholas Graham-10-28-08

he McCain campaign continues to snipe at each other over the handling, and subsequent effect, of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail. According Nicole Wallace, a senior McCain aide who is one of Palin's handlers and helped to orchestrate her initial rollout, there is an 'organized campaign to lay blame' for things at her feet. Robert Draper, however, offers a defense of Wallace, saying she's kept quiet about things that a couple of McCain higher-ups have leaked to him, and that Wallace was in a very unenviable position:

I'm sympathetic to Eskew and Wallace, and not just because they're decent people. They've held their tongue from leaking what a couple of McCain higher-ups have told me--namely, that Palin simply knew nothing about national and international issues. Which meant, as one such adviser said to me: "Letting Sarah be Sarah may not be such a good thing." It's a grim binary choice, but apparently it came down to whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus. I was told that Palin chafed at being defined by her discomfiting performances in the Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Sean Hannity interviews. She wanted to get back out there and do more. Well, if you're Eskew and Wallace, what do you say to that? Your responsibility isn't the care and feeding of Sarah Palin's ego; it's the furtherance of John McCain's quest for the presidency.

Draper also reports that McCain snubbed Palin during a long ride on the Straight Talk Express.