The standards of competence of the Bush administration are now up for a third term:

“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,” said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor. Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Ms. Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her. “I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called,” Ms. Phillips said. “I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.”

Lyda Green - who's the State Senate President and a Republican - and Sarah Palin are mortal enemies - just so you know where she's coming from. When two far right shock-jock radio talk show hosts, interviewing Palin on the air, described Green on the air as a "bitch," Palin could only giggle and say she would be "honored" to host the two men at an event. Here's Green's take on the Palin pick:

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

And here's what Lyda Green said after the staggering news last March - greeted with stunned disbelief by Palin's staff and the entire Alaskan establishment - that Palin was seven months' pregnant:

"It's wonderful. She's very well-disguised," said Senate President Lyda Green, a mother of three who has sometimes sparred with Palin politically. "When I was five months pregnant, there was absolutely no question that I was with child."

Read the whole Anchorage Daily News story from that day here. Let me repeat that: read the whole thing.

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