Soccer Dad

Belated straight talk

Yeterday the Wall Street Journal stated that John McCain owed Sarah Palin some straight talk. (via memeorandum)

In Mr. McCain's moving concession speech, he wished "godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president." He asked his fellow Americans to join him in helping President-elect Obama bridge our differences and build a better, more hopeful nation.

It will be instructive to see whether Mr. McCain will now extend the same level of graciousness to Mrs. Palin that he has to Mr. Obama, by giving a public slapdown to the very public smears emanating from his own campaign team. We have no idea what Mr. McCain will do when he sits down with Mr. Leno tonight.

But there's no doubt what a man of honor would do.

I didn't see it, but it appears that Sen. McCain took that advice to heart (via memeorandum).

"I'm so proud of her and I'm very grateful she agreed to run with me. She inspired people, she still does," McCain told Jay Leno during a "Tonight Show" interview taped for broadcast Tuesday night. "I couldn't be happier with Sarah Palin."

In an interview that mingled flashes of humor with political analysis, McCain did little to deflect responsibility from himself. He alluded to the difficult political environment for Republicans nationwide and conceded, "I could tell you a lot of things that we may have made mistakes on." He never listed them.

"So, that's the way it is," he added.

And as far as those rumors:

Asked by Leno to address griping about Palin from unidentified McCain operatives in the days following the election, the Arizona senator said, "These things happen in campaigns.

"I think I have at least a thousand, quote, top advisers," he scoffed. "A top adviser said? ... I've never even heard of ... a top adviser or a high-ranking Republican official."

When the media uses anonymous sources one problem they encounter is inflating the standing of its sources. McCain certainly seems to be implying that the folks whose complaints about Palin got such attention were pretty insignificant in his campaign. Maybe that's why he didn't defend her right away. While it's good that he did eventually stand up for Gov. Palin, Sen. McCain really owed it to her to speak up sooner.