If two teams in a competition follow different rules, I’m not sure that anyone can win. Even if there can somehow be a victor, it is bound to be a messy, maddening affair.

This is what is happening with twenty-odd days to go before the presidential election. The McCain campaign seems to have created one set of rules for John McCain, and another for Barack Obama. Here’s how.

McCain Rule #1: You are responsible and may be implicated for every action ever taken by anyone you have ever served on a board or committee with

The McCain campaign announced their new rules with one name: Ayers.

As messenger, Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin has delivered dozens of speeches in which she uses Bill Ayers to raise questions not only about Barack Obama’s motives, but about who the democratic nominee for president even is.

The argument from McCain and Palin goes as follows: Barack Obama and Bill Ayers served on the same board for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Also, Ayers, thirty years after ceasing his despicable ways, and many years into his post as a professor at a respected university, hosted a fundraising meeting for Obama toward the beginning of Obama’s political career. Thus, according to the McCain-Palin logic, Obama is “palling around with domestic terrorists” and can’t be trusted.

The major logical flaw here is this: The Annenberg Challenge was a non-profit organization whose goal was to promote public school reform in Chicago. Its parent organization was founded by a woman named Leonore Annenberg. Leonore Annenberg is a vocal supporter of Senator John McCain.

So, just to make the irony and the connection clear: a prominent endorser of Senator McCain created the education foundation that had Barack Obama and Bill Ayers (as well as a number of Republicans) on one of its boards. Were the number of Republicans on that board, and is Leonore Annenberg herself, “palling around” with Bill Ayers, too? Or is Barack Obama the only one who is guilty by association?

There’s also the very troubling issue of a few of John McCain’s past associations. There’s McCain’s “old friend” Gordon Libby, a felon who spend years in federal prison for his part in Watergate. There’s McCain’s associate Ralph Reed, a key figure in the Abrahmoff scandal. There’s McCain’s associate Carl Lindner, Jr., a man who gave approximately $1.7 million dollars to a paramilitary group that is now designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. By McCain’s Rule #1, we should question and doubt John McCain for each of these shady associations. Because he knows and has worked with these people, he should be held responsible for their actions.

Doesn’t John McCain see that, if a candidate is not only judged by but inextricably linked to anyone who has ever hosted a campaign event or provided major political support for him, then that leaves McCain himself linked to a convicted felon, a figure in one of the highest-profile political scandals of the decade, and a supporter of terrorism?

McCain Rule #2, as recently adopted by his staunch supporters: If anyone you have ever associated with has unsavory, despicable characteristics, then you yourself share these unsavory despicable characteristics

McCain’s Rule #2 has been applied most liberally to Obama’s associations with Ayers and his former pastor Jeremiah Wright. To be clear, Ayers’ stupid, unpatriotic actions should be denounced; this is obvious, and Obama has said so on a number of occasions. Similarly, Jeremiah Wright should be called a fool for his anti-American rants and offensive, hyperbolic rhetoric. Again, Obama has fully separated himself from Wright, and from every anti-American comment this man ever made (even those he made when Obama wasn’t even in the congregation).

Yet this rule requires us to further abandon reason, and believe not only that Obama is guilty by association, but that he actually shares the same characteristics and opinions as any unsavory person he has ever been associated with. McCain’s Rule #2, in spite of being illogical and unfair, has clearly been embraced by some of his supporters, as evidenced by the shouts of “treason!” and “terrorist!” after Barack Obama’s name is mentioned at McCain and Palin rallies.

Did Sarah Palin need to renounce the pastor who made absurd accusations about an Alaskan woman and warned congregants about the dangers of witchcraft, while Palin herself was not only in attendance at the church, but called up on stage as a participant? Would John McCain assert that, because Sarah Palin sat in church and listened to this man, she herself must share his opinions?

We can also go back to McCain’s friend (McCain has called him that) Gordon Liddy. Liddy is most well-known for spending four years in prison for his involvement in the Watergate scandal, but his less-reported behavior is arguably the most troubling.

McCain’s friend Gordon Liddy has asserted that listening to recordings of Hitler’s speeches made him feel “a strength inside [he] had never known before.” Liddy proposed kidnapping anti-war activists during the 1972 Republican National Convention. His documented advice to Branch Dividian cult members about how to fight the law enforcement officers trying to stop them in Waco was: “Give them a firefight. Just remember, they’re wearing flak jackets and you’re better off shooting for the head.” Shooting for the head of members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms who were trying to protect innocent Americans. That certainly constitutes promoting violence against the government.

Has McCain renounced this Gordon Liddy for encouraging violence against the government, for his participation in Watergate, for his idolization of Adolf Hitler, or for his proposal to kidnap Americans exercising their right to free speech? He has not. In fact, McCain has called Liddy “an old friend,” and said to Liddy on his radio show recently, “I’m proud of you.” McCain has accepted $1000 in campaign donations from Gordon Liddy this year alone.

That should be bad enough, but McCain Rule #2 leads even further. McCain has applied this rule to Obama on a regular basis, so let’s see what happens if we apply it to McCain.

By McCain’s own rule, McCain not only “pals around with” convicted felons who in their past have plotted and incited violence against the U.S. government, McCain himself has plotted and incited violence against the U.S. government. By McCain’s own rule, because one of his associates wanted to shoot government officials in the head, so too does John McCain want to shoot government officials in the head. By McCain’s own rule, because he knows Liddy, McCain must sympathize with every past or present bad deed done by Liddy, and thus McCain must also draw strength from Adolf Hitler and advocate the kidnapping of dissenters. Treason! Terrorist!

Does the absurdity and unfairness of this argument make your skin crawl? It should.

McCain Rule #3: This rule does not apply to John McCain or Sarah Palin

Well, shoot. Never mind, then. Silly me, thinking that John McCain’s own rules should apply not only to his opponent, but to him as well.

I am the last person who will say that we shouldn’t ask questions of each other and of our leaders. We have every right to seek information and to hold our candidates accountable, and to keep pressing at those gnawing questions until we are satisfied. That is one of our responsibilities as voters.

Yet an equally important responsibility is to be fair enough to ask those questions of both sides, and to accept that some questions may not lead to the exact answer we were hoping for or that will help us make our case. I don’t maintain that every question Americans have asked about Barack Obama has led to answers that cast him in an ideal light. But for the sake of fairness and honesty, we should acknowledge that the same is true of many of the questions Americans have asked about John McCain.

In a divided and frustrated country during what is by all accounts a difficult era, I bet most of us can all still agree on a few things. Like when we set rules, the rules should count for all players in the game. When we set standards, it is only right to apply those standards to everyone equally, and to give honest due to the truth we find, whether is applies to friend or foe.

It may sound quaint, but I think these ideas go all the way back to pre-school for me. It was there that I learned a pledge–one we made every day, to our country, and to each other. That pledge is about the most fundamental elements of America, like one nation, indivisibility, and liberty. It ends with an idea that is as important now as it has ever been: justice.

Justice for all.

I’ll admit it. When John McCain announced at the RNC that he had chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate, I got caught up in the excitement.

As I listened to her speech, I had a number of reactions. I was impressed at McCain’s boldness. I was proud to see a woman on the Republican presidential ticket for the first time in history. I was completely clueless about who this woman was.

The speech Sarah Palin delivered that day was many things: memorable, sarcastic, bold, mean, funny, and extraordinarily well-delivered. I think a lot of us found ourselves liking her, or at least rooting for her, either in spite of or in continuation of whatever other opinions we hold about this election.

The Learning Curve

Since that day at the RNC, we’ve learned a lot about Sarah Palin. And it hasn’t always been easy.

For the first few weeks after Palin’s selection, her public appearances were limited to numerous deliveries of the same speech, almost verbatim, that made her famous at the convention. We heard a lot about her “thanks, but no thanks, for that bridge to nowhere.” We hear about her taking on the good ol’ boys, and fighting earmarks.

It took a good couple of weeks to hear from an unscripted Sarah Palin. First, we saw her interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson; next, with Sean Hannity of Fox News; last (to date), her interview with Katie Couric for CBS Nightly News.

As I’ve mentioned, part of me was rooting for this Alaskan governor who stepped on a stage and wowed us. (I say “part of me” because I had gotten a bit wary after learning more about Governor Palin’s positions on social issues like the environment, gay rights, and abortion.) Still, I genuinely like to see strong, savvy women take the world by storm.

However, as I watched John McCain’s running mate talk to Gibson, then Hannity, then Couric–all journalists known for being, shall we say, gentler interviewers than most–a single, prevailing impression dominated every other reaction I had to what I saw.

The conclusion I couldn’t help but arrive at, couldn’t believe I was arriving at, was this: John McCain can’t possibly have this country’s best interest at heart.

Country First

A Vice President has two primary responsibilities, as outlined in the United States Constitution. The first is to become President if the President becomes unable to serve; the second is to act as head of the U.S. Senate. It is by these standards that a potential Vice President should be judged.

One could make a number of arguments against Sarah Palin’s ability to preside over the Senate (namely, she has never served as a member of the Senate or the House). But that discussion is for a later time. Of much graver importance is the question of whether Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as President of the United States should John McCain be unable to complete his term. Even graver than that is the question of what this indicates about Senator McCain.

What we learned between the Republican National Convention and the interviews was that Sarah Palin had never met a foreign head of state. She did not obtain a passport or travel outside of North America until 2006. She attended five colleges as an undergraduate. Of course, these facts raised some eyebrows. They didn’t seem to reflect many of the traits we hope for in a leader: a wide swath of experience, a commitment to education, a desire to see the world, a history of building relationships with other world leaders. Still, we thought, maybe there’s an explanation. We’ll wait to hear from her.

Yet when Sarah Palin finally spoke without the aid of a teleprompter, we heard the voice of a person who lacks basic command of nearly every important issue–foreign policy, national security, the economy, and energy policy, to name a few.

Palin’s more disappointing moments, such as when the term “Bush Doctrine” seemed to stump her, or when she asserted that Alaska’s proximity to Russia lends her credence in foreign affairs, gained significant media attention. But just as revealing were her “better” moments. Even at her best, Sarah Palin demonstrated an amateur understanding of the issues. She was unable to offer a specific proposal or solution regarding any one of the numerous problems the inheritors of the White House will inevitably face. After her most recent interview, some Republican commentators began calling for her to bow out of the race before more damage could be done.

Judgment Matters

What baffles me is that some voters don’t see McCain’s choice as a game-changer. The logic is: if McCain wins the election, and is able to serve through his term, then his decision to make Sarah Palin second in command ceases to be a problem. Yet this logic is deeply flawed. Because, most essentially, this is not about Sarah Palin. This is about John McCain, and what his choice tells us about him.

John McCain chose as his running mate a person who draws a great deal of attention to his campaign, advances his maverick reputation, and, initially at least, seemed to have the potential to gain favor with women voters. In doing this, however, McCain also chose someone who has demonstrated on a number of occasions that she is fundamentally unqualified to lead this country. McCain made this decision voluntarily and in full knowledge of the fact that, if the worst-case scenario were to arise, his country would be left in the hands a person who is notably unequipped for the job.

Thus, on one side, there is the potential for great political gain for John McCain. On the other side, there is the potential for great national loss for all of us.

To be sure, every man or woman running for president makes decisions that are politically prudent. No one expects a politician to be apolitical. But there are occasions in which a politically advantageous choice is the same choice that has real potential to put our country into one of the most precarious, vulnerable positions it has ever been in. I don’t think my standards are too high if I expect that, on these occasions, a man deserving of the title of President of the United States should side with country.

Make no mistake: John McCain has most certainly put country first many times in his life. But this is not one of those times.