PALIN A "LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS" SAY AIDES

It is a given that I suffer from Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS). Then again so do millions of Americans. The fact that this incurious, cluelesss, amoral woman could be a VP nominee, much less a governor, is frightening in what it says about our country.

It's well known that there were tensions between Arizona Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin last year during their presidential run, but a new article in Vanity Fair magazine sheds light on just how serious the rift between the two camps was.

According to the article, former McCain campaign staffers suffer from a collective "survivor's guilt" over the problem-plagued choice of Palin as vice-presidential candidate. The friction between the McCain and Palin was so intense that it carried right on into election night, when Palin wanted to address the Arizona crowd to whom McCain was to give his concession speech. After much back-and-forth wrangling, Palin didn't speak that night.

But trouble had been brewing long before that. Over the course of the campaign, one close adviser to McCain "was heard to refer to Palin as "little shop of horrors'" during the campaign.

McCain campaign members, in a series of conversations, told the magazine that "no serious vetting had been done before the selection (by either the McCain or the Obama team), and there was trouble in nailing down basic facts about Palin’s life" -- an omission that would cause immediate trouble as details of Palin's sordid family life began to emerge.

Palin's lack of aptitude in her new starring role as V-P candidate became obvious quickly. At times, it seemed as if Palin was more concerned with her popularity back home in Alaska than with the national presidential campaign that she was now a central part of.

"By all accounts, Palin was either unwilling, or simply unable, to prepare," the piece says. "In the run-up to the Couric interview, Palin had become preoccupied with a far more parochial concern: answering a humdrum written questionnaire from her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman ... At the same time, she grew concerned that her approval ratings back home in Alaska were sagging as she embraced the role of McCain’s bad cop."

From Vanity Fair:

As Palin has piled misstep on top of misstep, the senior members of McCain’s campaign team have undergone a painful odyssey of their own. In recent rounds of long conversations, most made it clear that they suffer a kind of survivor’s guilt: they can’t quite believe that for two frantic months last fall, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States someone who, by mid-October, they believed for certain was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be.

The Vanity Fair piece asks some poignant questions about the significance of Palin's vice-presidential bid last year. "What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded?" the article asks.

"What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life?" the piece continues. "Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency?"