I wonder if he tweaked her initially because he thought he could win this media fight (in the interest of working an angle for Rob Portman) or if he tweaked her because he didn’t expect any pushback from Palin and other conservatives, including his own daughter. A poor calculation from DC either way.

Not especially convincing, but damage control rarely is:

“It wasn’t aimed so much at Governor Palin as it was against the basic process that McCain used…my point basically dealt with the process in terms of that basic requirement, is this person prepared to step in to be president of the United States when they’re picked? And it was my judgment — I was asked if I thought the McCain process in ’08 had been well done or was it a mistake and I said I thought it was a mistake. That’s not…meant so much as a criticism of Governor Palin as it is that I just thought it was not — the process didn’t meet the standards I would like to see our candidate pursue when they pick a — a running mate.”

Is that really much of a walkback? Watch the key bit below from the original interview. My point in our last post about this was that he probably didn’t mean the initial criticism as personally as it ended up sounding; I took it as more of a critique of nominating any VP with two years’ experience rather than of Palin. I think that’s what he’s getting at here, but his basic argument that that means she shouldn’t have been the pick is essentially intact. Guess we’ll see more of where he’s going with this tonight.