John McCain, Fred Thompson and former Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Lieberman galloped to the defense of embattled Sarah Palin yesterday, trying to shield her from attacks that she’s not veep material, as well as from the firestorm over her pregnant teenage daughter.
“Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit,” said Thompson, a former presidential hopeful, “Law & Order” star and Tennessee senator.
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“Well, give me a tough Alaskan governor who has taken on the political establishment in the largest state in the union – and won – over the Beltway business-as-usual crowd any day of the week,” he said to cheers last night at the Xcel Energy Center.
“The selection of Governor Palin has the other side and their friends in the media in a state of panic.”
McCain, in Cleveland, heaped praise on his running mate and denied he hastily chose the freshman governor without checking her background.”
“America’s excited and they’re going to be even more excited once they see her [tonight]. I’m very, very proud of the impression she’s made on all of America, and looking forward to serving with her,” he said.
GOP advisers said before Palin was chosen, she filled out a survey with 70 questions, including such embarrassing ones as: Have you ever paid for sex? Have you been faithful in your marriage? Have you ever used or purchased drugs? Have you ever downloaded pornography?
“The vetting process was completely thorough and I’m grateful for the results,” McCain said during a stop in Philadelphia.
His spokeswoman, Nancy Pfotenhauer, quipped, “It was like a visit from the IRS and a proctologist.”
Lieberman used part of his address to the convention last night to call McCain-Palin “the real ticket for change this year.”
“Governor Sarah Palin, like John McCain, is a reformer who has taken on the special interests and reached across party lines. She is a leader we can count on to help John shake up Washington,” he said. “That’s why the McCain-Palin ticket is the real ticket for change this year.”
Palin’s dramatic story spilled onto the covers of this week’s celebrity magazines – a space normally reserved for the likes of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears – a must-read for many women.
OK! magazine will have its first political cover in its three-year-American run – with Palin on the back cover and Barack Obama on the front.
The publicity is not entirely flattering: She appears in Us magazine’s cover story, “Babies, Lies & Scandal.”
Palin’s staunch defenders had her back even as the Alaskan governor defiantly invited her daughter’s baby daddy to be her family’s guest at the Republican convention.
Levi Johnston, 18, boarded a plane in scenic Wasilla to join his five-month pregnant fiancée, Bristol Palin, 17, and her family in St. Paul, his mother, Sherry Johnston, told The Post.
“He’s going to the convention to be with Bristol,” she said, adding that her curly-haired son wasn’t pressured to tie the knot.
“Absolutely not. They were planning to get married – just not so soon,” she said.
The family drama rocked the McCain campaign Monday, although officials insisted the news of Bristol’s pregnancy was no surprise.
GOP heavies showed no sign of wavering on Palin, who will give a prime-time address tonight.
Calling Palin a “strong executive and proven reformer,” First Lady Laura Bush said to loud applause, “I’m proud that America’s first female vice president will be a Republican woman.”
Earlier yesterday, she and Cindy McCain met with Palin for a private powwow.
Other GOP stalwarts warned that candidates’ families are off-limits in politics.
“Frankly, you should be ashamed of yourself for asking the question,” former Mayor Rudy Giuliani snapped at a reporter after he was asked if the issue is a distraction.
“It doesn’t have the slightest – the slightest – relationship to a presidential campaign,” he scolded.
The GOP is positioning Palin, whose children include a 5-month-old boy with Down syndrome, as a victim of sexism.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, “I don’t think that those questions would be asked if it was Todd Palin [Sarah’s husband] that was the nominee.”
Additional reporting by Ginger Adams Otis in St. Paul, with Post Wire Services
cbennett@nypost.com