Can't Hold It In Any Longer

I promised that when I talked about politics it would be in a restrained, well-reasoned, thought-out post. Well, it turns out I don't have time for that and if I hold back any longer from talking about Sarah Palin I fear that I may explode.

First let's start with one of the best SNL openers in a long time, featuring Tina Fey as an eerily perfect Sarah Palin:

Okay, laughing over. Why in the HELL are people excited about her as VP? I absolutely do not understand. Women in general should be insulted by the pick. McCain's advisors seem to think that women are interchangeable, but I'm pretty sure the former Hilary supporters are not so easily fooled. And far from being a step forward for feminism, it's a step back. She was picked specifically because she is a woman, not because the was the best candidate for the job who just happened to be female; there is no way a man with her same political resume (or lack of one) would have made it to the short list, much less be the final pick. The comments from within her own party about her appearance are demeaning (Limbaugh calling her a "babe", interviews of people leaving the convention summing up her credentials as being "one pretty lady", etc.), all of which make the recent Republican ad attacking the Democrats for belittling her rather ridiculous- although it makes me happy to think this is all they have to go on the offensive about. (And, if Karl Rove is saying your ads have gone too far and are beyond the "100% truth test" you should really stop and wonder how much of a "straight talker" you are. You should also avoid denigrating community service when it's part of your campaign slogan. Oh, and she did not "kill" the Bridge to Nowhere, it was already dead, and then she kept the $223 million from the appropriation. Argh! OK, exiting the parenthetical.)

But really, her being a woman has almost nothing to do with my thoughts (and fears) about her as a candidate. It's her striking similarities between Bush and her inextricable popularity that have me scared. After eight years of bumbling inexperience, doesn't America want someone who knows something about politics, foreign policy, economics, the Constitution, etc.? Her interview with Charlie Gibson revealed a frightening lack of foreign policy knowledge, especially given how much she had to have been prepped for her first unscripted televised experience. (For a good write-up of it from a law and international relations masters student, read here.) I realize she's only a V.P. and in general V.P.'s just wait in the wings, but she's waiting in the wings of the oldest man to be elected for his first term, and I think her selection reflects negatively on the man we're actually voting for. This article from the Economist summed it up nicely, "Mr McCain has based his campaign on the idea that this is a dangerous world—and that Barack Obama is too inexperienced to deal with it. He has also acknowledged that his advanced age—he celebrated his 72nd birthday on August 29th—makes his choice of vice-president unusually important. Now he has chosen as his running mate, on the basis of the most cursory vetting, a first-term governor of Alaska.

[paragraphs omitted]

The political calculations behind Mr McCain’s choice hardly look robust. Mrs Palin is not quite the pork-busting reformer that her supporters claim. She may have become famous as the governor who finally killed the infamous “bridge to nowhere”—the $220m bridge to the sparsely inhabited island of Gravina, Alaska. But she was in favour of the bridge before she was against it (and told local residents that they weren’t “nowhere to her”). As mayor of Wasilla, a metropolis of 9,000 people, she initiated annual trips to Washington, DC, to ask for more earmarks from the state’s congressional delegation, and employed Washington lobbyists to press for more funds for her town.

[paragraphs omitted]

Inexperienced and Bush-level incurious. She has no record of interest in foreign policy, let alone expertise. She once told an Alaskan magazine: “I’ve been so focused on state government; I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.” She obtained an American passport only last summer to visit Alaskan troops in Germany and Kuwait. This not only blunts Mr McCain’s most powerful criticism of Mr Obama. It also raises serious questions about the way he makes decisions."

And here's another mention of the similarities between Bush and Palin from conservative David Frum, the President's former speech-writer: "George W. Bush had very slight executive experience before becoming president. His views were not well known. He won the nomination exactly in the same way that Palin has won the hearts of so many conservatives: by sending cultural cues to convince them that he was one of them, understood them, sympathized with them. So that made everything else irrelevant in 2000 - as it seems again to be doing in 2008." Frum also admits that Bush lacked "important aspects of leadership which is how we got into the mess from which he needed to rescue the country and himself." (quoted from the article, "George Bush in Lipstick")

I realize this post doesn't get at policy, though it appears that I disagree with her on just about everything: being pro-life no matter what, abstinence only education, teaching creationism in public schools, total environmental irresponsibility (ex: global warming isn't man made and the way to reduce our dependency on foreign oil is to drill into our own limited reserves rather than explore alternatives), and fiscal irresponsibility (inheriting a small town with zero debt and leaving it with $20 million, even after increasing taxes. Source). And there's things I admire about Sarah Palin - she's a strong woman, raising a family, and pursuing a career that matters to her. I just can't imagine her "a heartbeat away from the presidency" and don't understand how a party that was all up in arms about Obama's experience a month ago is suddenly explaining away their VP's lack of it. When I heard the news of her pick, I was elated- I thought for sure this would hand the election to Obama. All I kept hearing about from my Republican friends was Obama's lack of experience and the vast majority of Americans claim to want a change from Bush, and yet Palin has brought the presidential race to an apparent dead heat. I misunderstood America in 2004 when Bush was reelected - it didn't even occur to me to be worried that he'd stay in power, and it appears I'm confused again.

I sincerely hope, for a lot of reasons, that Obama/Biden win in November. Until then I'll continue reading about politics, donating to Obama, arguing with JP (who, in case you're curious, is completely disgusted with both McCain and Palin and has decided to abstain from voting for any party which I think is wrong because someone is going to be President and you as an informed citizen have a duty to select the person you think is best - or least worst - from the options available), and possibly writing things here, though now that I have my Palin frustration out of my system, I may be able to stick to posting about noncontroversial things like airplane seats and breastfeeding (kidding, there's no way I'm touching those again). Sometime before the election I really would like to write about my thoughts on the major issues and why I hold them- I could send it to my dad to prove this Democrat thing is not a phase and it would be helpful to me to explain and justify my views, but that will probably take way more free time than I have at my disposal. (This post is brought to you courtesy of a bad cold that's kept me home from work without a baby, billables, or anything good on TV.)

Oh, and my previous discussion about deleting negative comments applies to my personal career and family choices, not my politics. I look forward to reading your own views, disagreements, and/or explanations as to Palin's appeal (or McCain's for that matter).