Needlenose

Josh Marshall cuts through the GOP’s machine-produced smoke today:

Since there is widespread agreement that the children of candidates should not become topics of campaign debate, it behooves us to note that the McCain campaign has almost singlehandedly made Sarah Palin’s daughter a central figure in the Republican convention.

It was the McCain campaign that announced Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy. It was the McCain campaign, entirely on its own, that dished up unsubstantiated claims about maternity tests and all sorts of other lurid nonsense that had never been seen in print anywhere. . . .

Overwhelmingly, reporters are pressing eminently reasonable questions — her role in troopergate, her lack of experience, her connections to the AIP, her history of earmarking and lobbyists, etc. Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is going absolutely non-stop about Palin’s daughter. It is unmistakable.

Time magazine’s Joe Klein concurs:

This is a smokescreen, intended to divert attention from the fact the very real and responsible vetting that is taking place in the media–about the substance of Palin’s record as mayor and governor. . . . it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.”

But the Rovian B-teamers guiding the McCain plane crash campaign probably don’t feel like they have a choice. As much as some people may consider a Palin withdrawal inevitable, the McCainiacs are probably all too aware that throwing her under the bus would only intensify the criticism for having picked her in the first place. And for someone running on a vote-for-strong-daddy platform like McCain is to admit a mistake this big would be tantamount to conceding the election.

The only circumstance that could force such a desperation move would be if a stream of continuing revelations — as the media performs the vetting the McCain camp cut corners on — keeps chatter about Palin’s flaws alive, drowning out all serious consideration of McCain’s candidacy to the point where getting a new veep is the only way to change the subject.

To prevent that, two things need to happen: First, Palin has to stonewall the investigation into her abuse of power as governor of Alaska, so its findings don’t come out before November, and second, the press has to be intimidated into silence. (It’s notable that Joe Klein says, “Those of us who have criticized the candidate–and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past–have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year”; this is all about getting the sheep back in the fold.)

And so, to distract attention from the first objective and to help accomplish the second one, tonight at the Republican convention we’ll be treated to the spectacle of an entire political party trying to hide behind a pregnant 17-year-old girl.

If you happen to think there’s something unseemly about using an unborn fetus and its teenage parents as the political equivalent of human shields, well, get over it. Haven’t you noticed that shamelessness has always been an essential part of McCain’s strategy?