The Calls Are Getting Louder

...for Sarah Palin to resign from McSame's ticket.

Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, "to spend more time with her family"? Having stayed in purdah for weeks, she finally agreed to a third interview. CBS's Katie Couric questioned her in her trademark sympathetic style. It didn't help. When asked how living in the state closest to Russia gave her foreign-policy experience, Palin responded thus:

"It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where—where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state."

That's Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria taking her apart. It gets worse.

Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges.

I honestly think she'll resign before Thursday's debate. She has to or McSame loses in a landslide. They have to know that Biden won't defeat her, she'll simply defeat herself.

I give her until Tuesday, maybe Wednesday at the latest. But if she's not off the ticket by then, Obama wins in a wipeout. Believe me, the McSame team is making calls right now to line up a successor. She will give family reasons: Trig's health, her daughter's pregnancy, Troopergate, a sick moose somewhere near Nome, I have no clue what it'll be but more than ever I believe she's off the ticket. It's a question of days now. The media is in open revolt against her. Palin is under total lockdown now, they've turned on her and Palin's numbers have dropped precipitously after those interviews, especially the Katie Couric one.

But voters are now apparently having doubts. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released yesterday found that while 47 percent of likely voters believed that Palin had the personality and leadership qualities a president should have, 49 percent said she didn't.

Compare that with her Democratic counterpart Joe Biden: 55 percent said he had the necessary qualities, while only 39 percent said he did not. Both Barack Obama and John McCain had 62 percent of voters believing they have what it takes to be president.

It's time to start seriously gaming ahead here on who McSame would get to replace her.

My money's still on Lieberman.