Rivers of ink have already been spilled writing countless words of praise and, more recently and finally, criticism for Senator John McCain's pick for his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Rivers more will add to the rising black flood come Friday morning.
As a frequent contributor to several newspapers in my home region of the Pacific Northwest, and to this site, these past five weeks I've restrained myself from writing about Ms. Palin. I vowed not to add a drop to the deluge, and instead have trained my words not on the monkey, but on the organ grinder - Senator McCain. Along the way, I've also enjoyed writing (and making the rec list here!) with words of hope and support for the campaign of Senator Obama.
But with so very many words and thoughts on the stupendous unpreparedness of Governor Palin flitting about my brain late at night in recent weeks, like moths to a porchlight, causing insomnia and irritability, today I finally gave in and assembled them into my next newspaper column, below the fold.
I do not expect many readers, and for those kind few who do stop by I do not expect that this column says much you've not already read or thought, but I hope you will enjoy it as a coherent whole. Thank you for reading:
Reasonable people could argue whether John McCain was once an honorable man, honorable for serving his country as he saw best. But past honorable service and dedication to duty and country does not immunize one against poor judgment.
In failing to select a credible governing partner, McCain has indeed exhibited poor judgment, choosing for his successor a political novice who has distinguished herself thus far only in her ineloquence and her utterly shallow understanding of the critical issues facing our nation.
McCain is 72 years old. If elected – a possibility made diminishingly likely by his selection of Governor Palin – his actuarial risk of dying during his first term is uncomfortably high. Knowing this, and knowing Palin’s stunning unreadiness for high office, the nation will collectively cringe in fear every time President McCain sneezes or coughs.
We should not be entirely surprised by McCain’s selection of Palin. The opportunistic and irresponsible choice of a gun-toting, polar bear-hating, wolf-shooting, moose-eviscerating, science-doubting, hard-right orthodox conservative evangelical young-earth creationist from a Big Oil state who sleeps with a secessionist is but the latest example of hasty decision making (read "maverick") that marks McCain’s long political career.
But so reckless is this latest example of his maverickiness that it directly contradicts McCain’s own campaign slogan of "country first". His selection of a running mate so grossly oblivious to international affairs during a time when America is fighting two wars – not to mention a time when we are in desperate want of careful and wise diplomacy in such hotspots as Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and Sudan – is evidence not of putting country first, but of putting it last, behind politics and pandering.
What’s worse, the manner in which Palin was chosen – on the basis of the most cursory vetting and on gut instinct – is all too reminiscent of the man McCain would succeed. And look where placing a greater value on instinct than knowledge has gotten us today.
Governor Palin may be at heart a good person. She is likely a good mom, and a loving spouse. But she is not, as the Republicans are trying desperately to pass her off, the second coming of Ronald Reagan, nor the love child of Reagan and Betty Crocker. If anything, she has seemed more the love child of Forrest Gump and Ann Coulter.
Let’s be honest: Palin is spectacularly out of her depths. On the basis of her performance the past four weeks, one has to ask: Has the bar for admission to the White House truly been set this low?
She is a national security risk. She is woefully lacking in national and global insight. She is ill-read, ill-educated, and incurious. Worst of all, she is supremely self-confident to the point of not recognizing how ill-equipped she is to lead anything, much less the country.
Yet she boldly tries to pass her lack of curiosity and insight off as regular-people qualities, as evidence of her "Joe six-pack-ness". As if this were a refreshing character trait, and not a reminder of where this country is today for having elected and re-elected another supposed "Joe six-pack" in 2000 and 2004.
This comparison is almost unkind to the current president. Palin makes Bush sound like Cicero. Her prepared answers sound rehearsed and tinny. Her unprepared answers sound incoherent gibberish.
She has far too many moose in the headlights moments during interviews. She is a master of the non-answer, and of the re-phrasing of the question into an answer. And she consistently denigrates thoughtfulness, activism, expertise, experience, and judgment.
Her pat answer to questions of her readiness has been to say that not only is she ready, but willing, and able. Which leads us to the largest moose in the room: Palin’s lack of experience. Her resume is astonishingly thin: a mayor of a small town whose population wouldn’t fill the average college gymnasium, and a governor for less than two years of a state who population is exceeded by two dozen American cities. But though her resume may be thin, her file is thick.
A close examination of Palin’s record as mayor and governor is not reassuring. Since her selection as the Republican’s new cover girl, she has quickly been shown to be somewhat less than truthful about her record, and to be not quite the pork-busting reformer, the foe of earmarks and "good-old boy" politics, nor the champion of ethics that McCain claims.
She was for the "Bridge To Nowhere" before she was against it. She never said "No, thanks" to Washington for the initial monies intended for the bridge – monies delivered, in fact, before she even became governor. As mayor, she hired a lobbyist to get earmarks, and as governor she, like any governor, pursued them. And this "budget balancer" left her small town in greater debt than before she was mayor.
Under scrutiny, the patterns of her style of leadership are clear: she appoints friends and incompetents, abuses her authority, pursues vendettas, hides behind executive privilege, talks small government but spends big, and talks open government but works in secret. Sound like anyone you know?
While campaigning here in the lower 48, she has left behind in Alaska a lipstick jungle of lies and cover-ups. She is the owner of more scandals than the McCain’s have homes. The McCain campaign will be lucky to avoid one or another of these scandals rearing its ugly head before November 4th.
Palin’s selection was nothing more than a shameless and transparent pander to women, and to the evangelical right. Can anyone honestly say with a straight face that Governor Palin would have been chosen were one of her chromosomes a Y instead of an X?
Thankfully, the American people have caught on to this dangerous gimmick, this flashy flim-flam. More than fifty percent of voters now say that Palin is unprepared for the vice-presidency. Obama’s lead among women has grown from a mere one point after her selection, to seventeen points today. Americans are beginning to understand Palin for what she is: a campaign accessory, a flag pin with a pretty smile and nice hair.