Now I Understand John McCain

...I think.

I think I understand why he repeatedly went against his party, why he has never let the right wing talk show hosts push him around and why, above all, he chose Sarah Palin.

Watch this from 42:30 on and I think you'll see it, too.

"Country first" is more than a slogan for John McCain. It's burned into the very core of his being. Whatever her limitations, there could not be a better VP candidate for him than Sarah Palin, a woman who may be his equal in courage, determination and patriotism, someone who relentlessly went after her state's corrupt political machine, a machine of her own party.

It would be the equivalent of Senator Obama having gone after the Daley machine in Chicago.

Saddling John McCain with the likes of Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty would never have worked. He had to have a poltical soulmate as his VP, someone who he knew would carry on his work if he died. Bobby Jindal, who is currently draining the swamps of corruption in Louisiana, would have been another good choice, but any of the traditional politicians trotted out as possible VP candidates would have stood in stark contrast to this unique man.

John McCain is in Washington, but not of it. As I heard his life story, I wondered what it must be like for him to sit on Senate panels and hear the backroom deals where the pork-barrel earmarks are planned and favors exchanged. For a man who gained a religious zealot's passion for his country while being tortured for 5 1/2 years in a foreign prison, these discussions must disgust him. How refreshingly alien to the culture of Washington he is!

He'd make a great president.