A lot of people have been saying the Palin pick demonstrates that John McCain has a reckless, risky side to him. But it's only reckless and risky if you presume McCain was assessing all the factors and simply betting against the adverse possibilities. There's also an interpretation that suggests something more unsettling -- though achingly sympathetic and human -- about McCain's decision-making process: It suggests that McCain was unwilling to seriously face up to the implications of his own mortality. For years, the little circle on my driver's license that declares me an organ donor went unchecked. And not because I have some philosophical objection to organ donation. Rather, when I was filling out those forms, I didn't want to check the box admitting the possibility I could die in a car accident (I've since gotten over it). McCain's choice of Palin hints at a similar mindset. Palin is arguably the least qualified option he could possibly have selected. Even someone like Carly Fiorina, with long experience at the heights of the American economy and the junctures of international trade, would have made more sense. You can read into that political opportunism, of course, or a simple unwillingness to look at anything save base mobilization and soccer mom appeal. But you can also understand it as a psychologically declarative pick: McCain choosing the understudy that you'd never choose if age were a factor and mortality a threat. What you can't say about Sarah Palin is that John McCain sat down and asked himself, "what if I die?" No one -- literally, no one -- has actually argued that Palin would be the answer McCain would venture to that question. But McCain, a serious public servant, should have asked himself that question. Part of the maturity demanded by leadership is a willingness to think through what would happen in your absence. Picking Palin, McCain declared himself stubbornly unwilling to entertain the possibility. And on a gut level, I'm deeply sympathetic to that superstition. But I'm not running for president. John McCain is a 72-year-old man with a history of cancer. He probably won't die, but it is a possibility -- just as it is for any leader. In that context, there's something about picking Palin that's reminiscent of the mindset that refuses life insurance because it implies the possibility of death. McCain chose a vice president on the premise that she would never be needed. Hopefully, she won't be. But presidents aren't supposed to bet the fate of their country on the unknowable hand of their health.
