A look at a McCain administration's decision making process

The one thing that should come of this, regardless of whether Palin is dumped from (or “withdraws” from) the VP slot, is that John McCain has horrible judgment and makes rash decisions and relies on people who have a self serving track record..

Whether it be his trusting of the religious right in his non vetting of his “soulmate” Palin, or his ties to Iran double agent Ahmed Chalabi or his lobbyist-filled campaign, or the involvement with Charles Keating or his physically attacking fellow republicans or foreign diplomats - McCain has shown poor judgment time and time again.

And we can look to more of the same under a McCain administration - poor decisions that are not well thought out, lashing out at anyone who dares to question and a reliance on those who are out for themselves even at the expense of America and Americans.

It isn’t too tough to imagine how McCain would react to any number of situations as he has a long trail of bad judgment, fake machismo and being a sucker for those who want to take advantage of him for their own gain if it means a bit of power for him. Let’s look at how a few scenarios would play out:

Major Natural Disaster in the US

President McCain summons Homeland Security Secretary Tim Pawlenty, whose bold experience and willingness to take on liberal Democrats who wanted infrastructure funding for silly things such as rebuilt bridges or roads. Under Pawlenty’s advice, McCain decides to hold a series of fundraisers for his reelection campaign while telling people that things aren’t so bad - and then sends FEMA Head Grover Norquist to examine the region before declaring it a Federal Disaster area. Norquist and McCain decide to raze the entire region and give tax breaks to Halliburton to rebuild the area into a giant John McCain Presidential Library.

International Crisis

After deciding to invade Czechoslovakia before consulting with Secretary of State Joe Lieberman, who talks McCain down by telling him that there is no longer such a country, McCain decides to personally boycott any G8 meeting until that “damn Soviet Union” is kicked out like he wanted. National Security Advisor Doug Feith tells McCain that it is really Iran and Syria working with the “the other Muslims”, and the intelligence linking this plot goes back to an “official document” and was completely vetted as rock solid evidence, despite being mocked by the international community and at least three National Intelligence Estimates.

Stock Market Crash

After blaming the liberal blogs for depressing morale after the twelfth straight month of 250,000 jobs lost and a 1,500 point drop in the Dow over one week, Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm tells Americans to “suck it up” as McCain decides that the only thing that can help the economy is a direct stimulus package that will eliminate the middleman and go directly to Big Oil in the form of $1 billion in direct payments and refundable tax credits.

Domestic Terrorist Attack

Despite the fact that three white southern males blew up an abortion clinic, a community center and a temple and despite the fact that all three males had MySpace pages that proclaimed “death to gays”, “the Holy War is upon us” and “baby killers must die”, McCain appoints a special commission headed by Ralph Reed and Ted Haggard to investigate why the liberal lifestyle is to blame. When it is pointed out that the parents were part of a white supremacist group and had ties to Conservative religious extremists, McCain’s only comment was that for over five years the only religion that McCain practiced was “the religion of American freedom while in prison”.

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Sadly, most of the examples here involve people whose judgment and decisions and personal motivations are questionable at best. However, these are all people who have had too much sway over McCain - a man who is already prone to taking extreme risks and high stakes gambling.

The Palin pick is wrong for many reasons - a number of which relate to her background, her husband’s background, their extreme views and abuse of power. However, the pick and the ensuing fiasco (that is so delicious to watch) is just another indication of the poor decision making process, the bad judgment and the questionable people that McCain relies on and surrounds himself with, not to mention shamelessly panders to.

And that is something that will not change, regardless of who the VP pick is or was, or whether the situations are snarky like above or are actual situations or crises.