Matt Welch takes aim:
Forget Palin; let's talk about The Weekly Standard. What kind of journalistic pathology yearns so nakedly to provide the brainpower to supplement politicians' animal magnetism? And when are we going to get the mother of all internal magazine stories, the one that describes just how the same lot who breathed ideology into an emptyish vessel called John McCain 10 years ago turned on their own creation when he finally neared the finish line and doubled-down instead on the unqualified veep candidate they helped foist upon him?
The answer is that they need someone to bring the populist plebs along for the neocon ride. Reagan did it for a while and so did Bush II (until the entire project crashed and burned under its own contradictions). But McCain never had that - so he was a place-holder for the forever war against the Arabs/Muslims. His acknowledgment of climate change, his comfort with Democratic party wonks, his support for campaign finance reform, his visceral discomfort with the holy-rollers: all this made him an imperfect tool.
But Palin? The perfect tool if you think Bush II was a rip-roaring success story. More controllable. Until, of course, she wasn't.
As for Continetti, he wouldn't be the first young man in a hurry in Washington. You'd be amazed at what ambition can get people to write, even in earnest.