I have yet to comment on Barack Obama’s brilliant speech last night, but I need to comment first on John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his VP running mate.
I don’t ever want to hear another word from the McCain camp about Obama’s supposed “lack of experience,” because it has now placed on the ticket, one heartbeat away from the presidency (should McCain be elected *shudder*), a woman who is 44 years old and who has not even completed one term as Governor of Alaska.
Before serving a couple years as Governor, Palin was mayor of the town of Wasilla City, AK, which has a population of under ten thousand people. That’s smaller than the town I grew up in, and boy did I grow up in a small town.
Is this the experience that John McCain, a man of 72 years who has had four bouts with skin cancer and who has other possibly undiagnosed issues of mild dimensia (how else do you explain his flip-flops on so many topics, sometimes mere months between) would want conservatives to feel comfortable with as a VP?
If he wanted to pick a woman, perhaps unaware that the rest of the world would see right through this blatant attempt at pandering to the PUMA crowd, did he really expect anyone to believe that there was no better choice — that no other woman in the United States was better qualified to be next in line should something happen to McCain? Has no other woman worked her whole life hitting the glass ceiling and attempting to push through, possibly imagining some day she might hold the highest office in the land? Was there no one better than a forty-four year old ex-mayor who has not even served one term in a statewide office?
What the hell was he thinking? “Well, I can’t pick Romney, because he said so many horrible things about me, and if I pick Giuliani, I lose the die-hard conservatives.” What about Kay Bailey Hutchinson of good ol’ TEXAS? She has voted with the GOP over 89% of the time in the Senate. Not good enough for the conservatives in your party, John?
Where did she break with the GOP? Well, the first place is that pesky expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP for short. We can’t have that now, can we. Giving health insurance to the children? My god, next thing you know everyone will want health insurance! And then us folks will have to stand in line for it!
And ooh, here’s the biggie. Stem cell research. Yeah, the Christianists don’t like that stuff. You know, once you fertilize an egg, it doesn’t matter if it’s only a clump of ten or a hundred or a thousand cells, it’s LIFE.
Interestingly enough, I heard on the radio the other day that some 30% of eggs that are fertilized never make it through even a few months, mostly for unknown reasons. That would mean that god is the biggest abortionist of them all. That certainly gave me something to think about. But I digress.
Anyway, it looks like stem cell research was the killer there. Sorry Mrs. Hutchinson. The McCain camp has plans to appease conservatives by announcing that there should be NO stem cell research, if they have not already announced that. I’ll have to check into it.
Perhaps the best reason for McCain picking Mrs. Palin to be his running mate is the fact that her views are generally unknown on just about every issue under the sun. Perfect. What could be better than a blank slate onto which you can project everything you want? We know she’s a pro-NRA hunter, is fiercely anti-abortion and actually has a child with Downs’ Syndrome which she says she decided not to terminate, even though she found out way before the child was born. That’s about all we know.
Despite Mrs. Palin’s not quite two years holding statewide office, my guess is we still haven’t seen the last of the “inexperienced” charge toward Obama from the GOP.
Some “maverick” John McCain is. He’s taking the old playbook of accusing, attacking, and discrediting, while at the same time being guilty of the very thing he’s speaking against.
To quote a phrase, “That’s not change, that’s more of the same.”
What a maverick.
Oh yeah, and did I mention there’s a little ethics issue with Mrs. Palin? Yep. She’s under investigation.
Former Department of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan on Friday said that since Gov. Sarah Palin took office, members of her administration and family pressured him to fire a Palmer Alaska State Trooper to whom her sister was involved in a bitter child custody battle.
Well, she should have a lot to talk about with anyone in the GOP-based Justice Department.