http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080902/pl_nm/...3gUNfw4Riys0NUE
McCain defends Palin selection process
By Steve Holland
7 minutes ago 9.2.8
ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain defended on Tuesday his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate after she admitted that her teenage, unmarried daughter is pregnant.
Palin's disclosure, in addition to the news that she has a private lawyer in an ethics probe in Alaska, led some to raise questions about McCain's judgment and how thoroughly her background was examined in selecting the relatively unknown governor last week as his No. 2.
"My vetting process was completely thorough and I'm grateful for the results," McCain told reporters in Philadelphia after a visit with firefighters.
When Palin was announced Friday, her entry into the presidential race against Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the November 4 election was welcomed by Republicans as bringing a burst of energy to the McCain campaign.
They like her anti-abortion, pro-guns stances and her history of government reform in Alaska in her two years as the state's governor.
Republican leaders were standing by Palin as the Republican convention in St. Paul prepared to resume some semblance of normal business after all but shutting down on Monday to avoid political activities while the country coped with Hurricane Gustav.
President George W. Bush will speak via satellite hookup to the convention on Tuesday night, the McCain campaign announced. He had been scheduled to speak on Monday but canceled due to the hurricane.
"Let me tell you, the base of the Republican Party could not be more excited as they are with Sarah Palin," said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who was on McCain's short list for the vice presidential spot.
He told the Fox News Channel that, "You're going to find here in the convention and in the polls that follow, that Sarah Palin is connecting with the American voters and she's making the kind of impact that we'd hope she'd make."
Bush's wife, Laura, told a breakfast of Michigan Republican convention delegates that she is excited about Palin's candidacy.
"I think it was really very brilliant of John McCain to take her, and I'm so proud that I'm going to be able to vote for a Republican woman on this ticket," she said.
The McCain campaign released a copy of Palin's Republican voter registration card to rebut a report in The New York Times that Palin had been a member of the Alaska Independence Party for two years in the 1990s.
"The allegations that Gov. Palin was a member of (the) Alaska Independence Party are false. She's never been a member of the Alaska Independence Party," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.
THOMPSON, LIEBERMAN TO SPEAK
Other key speakers set for Tuesday night were ex-presidential candidate and former-Sen. Fred Thompson who will talk about "the courage and service of John McCain," followed by independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
Lieberman, a Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2000, had been mentioned as a possible running mate of McCain's. Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate but is considered an independent.
McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said the timing of Palin's speech was not yet set. He would not comment on whether she will use that speech to address any of the controversies currently surrounding her.
But he said, her speech will be "the most important speech the nominee will give in the course of the election" because of the large television audience.
Thompson, who lost to McCain in the party's presidential primary race, lambasted The New York Times for its coverage of Palin, charging the newspaper is "trying their best to drag her down."
He also blamed liberal bloggers for being "in a state of panic" about Palin. Thompson said Palin "excites people like I've never seen before.
McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace criticized "hateful" slurs and innuendoes in the liberal blogosphere.
"I think the private life of a 17-year-old child ... is something that was being used as a political weapon by liberal bloggers and advocates of Democratic and liberal causes," she said on Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show.