The Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn apparently thinks, John McCain Owes Sarah Some Straight Talk, or more specifically he is supposed to I guess apologize to her for his campaign staff throwing her under the bus.

It goes on to tout all the “wrongs” done to poor Sarah, and how it “wasn’t her fault” and in fact she was the only bright spot. She was the one that gave the campaign “a chance” (even though polls at the end showed that she was in fact a drag on the ticket).

We are asked to believe that Mrs. Palin was not ready for a national campaign. On what evidence from any part of this election are we to conclude that anyone on the McCain campaign team was ready for a national campaign?

Let’s stipulate that Mrs. Palin was not perfect. Regardless whose idea the Katie Couric interview was, it went badly and left some damage. The phone call she took from a comedian pretending to be French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy didn’t help. Neither did her assignment as campaign attack dog, the traditional role for any vice presidential candidate.

Yet there are other, more salient points. In the treatment of Mrs. Palin by some of the McCain staff, there is the clear whiff of condescension. That’s something a sitting American governor might understandably find hard to stomach coming from a bunch of young professional Republicans who have never themselves run for office.

So, that is it? It was just a couple of bad incidents, and her feelings were hurt because she felt that those who were running the campaign were condescending? Is Saracuda really so thin skinned?

I guess, the Mr. McGurn didn’t catch Sarah’s latest interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, where Palin says she regrets not giving more interviews, while demonstrating exactly why the campaign kept a leash on her.

On Africa, “So we discussed what was going on in Africa. And never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or is it a continent. I just don’t know about this issue. So I don’t know how they took our one discussion on Africa and turned that into what they turned it into,” said Palin.

“I don’t know, because I remember the discussion about Africa, my concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue, as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars, I wanted to make sure that that didn’t happen anymore.”

I think if the McCain campaign owes anybody apology, it is the American people at large, for even proposing that she be within a heartbeat of the Presidency. The presented her and promoted her as a viable candidate, when it seems that even they (behind closed doors) knew the truth.

Filed under: Failures, Media Falsehoods, WSJ