I’m not sure what the hell McCain was thinking, but my most likely reasons are that he:

• Did it in a fit of pique because his reported first choice, Joe Lieberman, who was shot down by the religious right.
• That he had no number two after his reported first choice, Joe Lieberman, who was shot down by the religious right, and he panicked.
• That he figures that after picking her to be the VP, enough will come out so that he can dump her after the convention, and select his his reported first choice, Joe Lieberman, who was shot down by the religious right.

My money is on the first possibility, but in any case, you have McCain staffers saying that she was not interviewed until the day before the announcement.

In any case, you have to love the irony of Dr. Laura saying that Palin is morally unfit to be VP.^*, though the fact that Jamie Lynn Spears^† sending a a gift of designer baby burp cloths to Bristol^‡ Palin to show moral support comes close.

The strange thing is that as Josh Marshall notes, the McCain campaign appears to be doing it’s level best to pimp Levi Johnston, the alleged father of the alleged child:

Let’s be clear about what’s happening here. 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.

Look at the video. It’s clear that McCain is attempting to make sure that this self described “Red Neck” is front and center:

Of course, it would not be fair to mention the National Enquirer article which said that Palin was pressuring Bristol^‡ to get a quickie marriage, but that, “Bristol, 17, refused to go along with the plan and that sparked a mother-daughter showdown over the failed coverup.”

Honestly, I expect that there was some shouting and screaming in such situations, but those are private matters, and the National Enquirer should be ashamed of itself.

That being said, Palin’s opposition to reality based sex education, along with her veto to slash funding from the Alaska program that helps teenage mothers get their lives together and keep their kids are legitimate policy issues that should be on the table.

Meanwhile, it appears that the state house investigation of “Troopergate” will be released a few weeks before the election, at least it will be if Palin’s private lawyer, hired at state expense, doesn’t manage to quash the investigation.

Thus far, we have already been treated to the spectacle of Sarah Palin filing an ethics complaint against … Sarah Palin in order to move the investigation to the state Personnel Board, whose members are appointed by … you guessed it … Sarah Palin!

Still, we have other ethical problems, such as her violation of state ethics laws by failing to disclose business interests.

Additionally, Time took a loor at her time as mayor of Wasilla, and found her systematically going after professional staff who were not sufficiently “loyal to the mayor”.

I believe that the translation for this is, “Heck of a job, Brownie.”

^*Actually, you have to love the irony of Dr. Laura saying that anyone is morally unfit for anything.
^†Yes, I know, she is, indirectly at least, one of Those Who Must Not Be Named, but there is a political context here.
^‡Is it that I affect British English too much, or do other people find it odd that someone named their kid a slang term for breasts?