GOP leaders: GOP is unfit to govern

Let's step back and let the obvious sink in. Think about this internecine GOP spat for a moment:

BRIAN KILMEADE: Now, Sen. McCain, I want you to hear a sound bite from one of the Sunday shows. Dick Cheney sits down, talks about your selection of vice presidential candidate Governor Palin. Listen.

DICK CHENEY: I like Governor Palin. I’ve met her. I know her. She – attractive candidate. But based on her background, she’d only been governor for, what, two years? I don’t think she passed that test…of being ready to take over. And I think that was a mistake.

BRIAN KILMEADE: You agree? Disagree?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Well, I’m always glad to get comments four years later. Look, I respect the vice president. He and I had strong disagreements as to whether we should torture people or not. I don’t think we should have. But the fact is I’m proud of Sarah Palin. I’m proud of the job she did. I’m proud of the job she continues to do. Everybody has their own views and I respect those views. But I’m proud of what we did.

The last GOP vice president accuses the last GOP presidential candidate of picking a vice presidential candidate unfit for the office -- in effect, a national security risk. The last GOP presidential candidate in turn accuses the last vice president of torturing people -- and implicitly, of instituting a torture regime, since Cheney was the prime driver of the CIA "program."  That is, of committing the United States government to systematic, sustained war crimes.

Forget for a moment the crankery that is the GOP's current economic dogma. In this tiff, the party has confessed itself unfit to govern: unqualified to handle the nuclear codes on the one hand, and in violation of its leaders' oaths to protect and defend the Constitution on the other.

Perhaps the most effective political ad of all time would simply pair these clips and point out that the party has effectively disqualified itself from higher office.