Putting aside the creepiness of a top McCain adviser having to reassure the nation that McCain, at 72 years of age with four bouts of cancer, won’t die in office, what Charlie Black said today was particularly damning of McCain’s VP choice, Sarah Palin:

Mr. McCain’s advisers said Friday that Mr. McCain was well aware that Ms. Palin would be criticized for her lack of foreign policy experience, but that he viewed her as exceptionally talented and intelligent and that he felt she would be able to be educated quickly. “She’s going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he’ll be around at least that long,” said Charlie Black, one of Mr. McCain’s top advisers, making light of concerns about Mr. McCain’s health, which Mr. McCain’s doctors reported as excellent in May.

So Black, the guy who said another 9/11-style attack on America would help McCain‘s campaign, is saying that McCain’s VP doesn’t know a thing about national security, but she can learn on the job over the next four years, you know, like night school. We’re at war. And they’re admitting that Palin may be our next commander in chief on day one, if McCain were to die or fall ill in office, yet she knows nothing about national security, and has never met a world leader. I, a blogger, have met more world leaders than McCain’s VP.* Chew on that.

(*We had the two hour lunch with Bill Clinton two years ago, and when I worked on the Hill I attended a private sit down meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in the early 90s. At the Rabin meeting, were only 8 or so of us in the room, and not enough chairs, so I was standing up against a wall, Rabin saw me, scooched over, and made me share the chair with him. I was mortified, and very impressed.)