Time Warner Summit Panel in NYC – - The chief strategist for President Bush’s 2004 campaign said Tuesday that Sen. John McCain put the nation at risk by picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. Matthew Dowd, who was also a senior adviser to the Republican National Committee in 2002, said McCain knew he put the country at risk by picking the inexperienced Palin and would “have to live” with that, the Post report says.

“They didn’t let John McCain pick the person he wanted to pick as VP,” Dowd reportedly said at the summit. “When Sarah Palin got picked instead of Joe Lieberman, which I fundamentally believed would have given John McCain the best opportunity in this race … as soon as he picked Palin, that whole ready vs. not ready argument was not credible.”

“[McCain] knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is something he will have to live with … He put somebody unqualified on that ballot and he put the country at risk, he knows that.”