Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Incredibly stunning to say the least, yet even on reasonably practical reflection, we may be witnessing another Dan Quayle selection moment in American politics. First termer and former beauty queen Gov. Sarah Palin! Was she that fully vetted? Can't wait to read all of her speeches in support of those Bush administration policies McCain claims to have walked away from.
So this is John McCain's bait to dissatisfied Hillary supporters? Sen. Obama was correct... John McCain just doesn't get it. He actually believes Rush Limbaugh who had to have collectively brainwashed the McCain operation that placing a neophyte female Alaskan governor on the ticket would convert the "over 50" Democratic moms to the GOP fold.
To think that McCain turned down far more nationally qualified individuals who have now been relegated to subordinate status in the pecking order of GOP politics:
1. Mitt Romney
2. Tim Pawlenty
3. Tom Ridge
4. Lindsey Graham
5. Charlie Crist
6. Joe Lieberman
7. Carly Fiorina
How must they feel? Dwarfed at the altar by a total unknown. Each rejected candidate now having to gamely march out before the national media to defend this singular act of a political Hail Mary pass. To steal an old adage of former Secretary of State James Baker... putting Sarah Palin into a debate with Joe Biden is going to be like throwing Howdy Doody into a knife fight!
Not to denigrate Gov. Palin the person -- she has a beguiling bio and has strong conservative, western credentials. She did not make any fatal error at her national political debut. After all she did get elected governor of a state. By definition she may be your typical "hockey mom." She may be all McCain claims she is in his introduction of her, but this is the person McCain will entrust to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? To be a commander-in-chief when the nation is fighting two wars???
Give McCain his due and applaud with one hand his audaciousness. Self-indulgence has long been McCain's dark underbelly. McCain's 72nd birthday present to himself... leaping without a parachute into the poltical unknown. It may turn out to be a game-changer. A potentially clever roll of the dice in a high-risk/high-reward to reach out to women and independents. But it appears more rash than rational.
If the McCain campaign was hoping to make the issue of experience a determining factor... it just took that issue completely off the table. McCain's campaign had to have recently concluded that the "experience" argument against Obama was not getting them anywhere, so now McCain is trying to steal away the "change" argument by redefining the race going into the GOP convention. Good luck!
Pure as the driven Alaskan snow... welcome Gov. Palin to the intense limelight of the national stage and the collective sounds of shocked gulps from your own party.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
I just watched Obama&Biden being interviewed on Palin..................
Apart fron the formal statement they put out.
They were having trouble keeping straight faces both of them. They did a good job of keeping it under control!
This is the definition of Hail Marry. McCain has no chance.
My thoughts exactly when I heard the news this morning.
As an Alaskan voter unaffiliated with any party, but usually voting dem, I did vote for Sarah Palin for governor, and she has done some good things. She's pretty ballsy, and started the ball rolling on ethics reform (and now the entire nation knows how much Alaska needs ethics reform).
That being said, she did abuse her power regarding pressure on her now fired commissioner of Public Safety to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She is not ready to take the reigns should the president be incapacitated. She may be someday, but not today. That she accepted this nomination, apparently unaware that she is being used as a token, speaks volumes to her political inexperience, and I shudder to think of the amount of catch up she has to do when it comes to foreign policy.
Let's keep Sarah Palin in Alaska to do her job, and let Barack Obama and Joe Biden do theirs in the Whitehouse.
Me again. I hope McCain didn't think that fans of Hillary were going to vote for her. Palin is pro-life, anti-Gay marriage, pretty soft on the environmental issues in favor of industry.
Re: To think that McCain turned down far more nationally qualified individuals who have now been relegated to subordinate status in the pecking order GOP politics:
1. Mitt Romney
2. Tim Pawlenty
3. Tom Ridge
4. Lindsey Graham
5. Charlie Crist
6. Joe Lieberman
7. Carly Fiorina
.
Betcha they are all smarter AND taller than John McCain. This choice is so bizarre, it's hard to believe that ego doesn't have at least something to do with this.
She's the female version of Dan Quayle. I call her "Jan Quayle".
"Geraldine Quayle"
Nope, I gotta go with Jan Quayle.
Besides the fact that it rhymes, it also lends itself to lots of Marsha, Marsha, Marsha jokes.
Has anybody considered how Palin's involvement in the firing of her brother-in-law smacks of the same right wing influence peddling that Alberto Gonzalez and his cronies in the justice department have been excoriated for?
This could be huge!!
In her words, the fact that her ex-brother in law is involved is coincidence. In her words, 'how could a relationship with my sister that ended years ago have any significance?'.
Well, dearest neocon neophyte Sarah, as a man who has been around the block a few times, I can tell you this. A woman NEVER forgets an enemy, and never lets a GUY forget when he has screwed up. You are soooooo busted. Sweet, but busted none the less.
metalpipe LOL!
Veeps are really just objects to be oggled at. It makes a lot of sense, really.
My guess is that the repubs were so frustrated that they were thinking how they could scr ew the dems. They figured that the dems had already prepared ads critical of
1. Mitt Romney
2. Tim Pawlenty
3. Tom Ridge
4. Lindsey Graham
5. Charlie Crist
6. Joe Lieberman
7. Carly Fiorina
but none critical of former beauty queen Gov. Sarah Palin -- so now they are forcing the dems to spend extra money -- good thinking, right.
Look at your list, it really is pathetic... Think about it, who else will McCane (Cane, get it) put on his cabinet? a real bunch of unknowns and keep the experienced pros like Rove.... Imagine Rove to be his cheif of staff and he would just reannoint the rest of Bush's cabinet.. What a mess they are in.
But by gum, Bush stole both elections and McCane can do the same...
This is biological politics saying, "Women, vote for the Repub ticket based on your biology and the biology of the VP." Nothing more, nothing less.
Although I support Obama wholeheartedly, the last thing he needs is a continuing debate on "experience," of which he has little, not even holding subcommittee meetings in the Senate on Afghanistan, for which he is responsible. He will be carrying the "football" with the nuclear targeting codes, not Ms. Palin.
Also, the constant and tedious invocation of phrases like "beauty queen" and "hockey mom" etc are a bit sexist when talking about Governor Palin.
Libel is only libel if its untrue, otherwise it's just reporting the facts. She won the Miss Walissa pageant and was the runner up in the Miss Alaska pageant so "beauty queen" can't really be seen as an insult - she was a beauty queen, and is a hockey mom so...
On the experience side, comparing her to Obama... you're right that's wrong, she should be compared to Biden, which is much, much more frightening.
Thanks McCain. You've made my day.
Those are both part of her resume, therefore not sexist in the least.
If you were really a wholehearted Obama supporter, you'd know that Obama's subcommittee didn't hold hearings on Afghanistan because Chairman Joe Biden directed that the full Foreign Relations Committee, not the subcommittee, would be responsible for that issue. By the way, Gov. Palin is the one who described herself as a 'hockey mom" who got into politics to fight corruption.
they aren't sexist if they are true. palin WAS a beauty queen, AND a SELF DESCRIBED hockey mom.
Unbelievable,
Pandering on steroids.
I bet she can spell "potato" though, she did attend the University of Idaho...
"Give McCain his due and applaud with one hand his audaciousness. "
Ok, I'm doing that, no wait...can we make "one hand", one finger instead?
Thanks John. See you on the shuffleboard circuit.
and what should we be doing with our other hand?
Thank you, thank you, thank you John McCain! You just gave Democrats the White House! You are the man!
been there done that and we got Bush,,,,,be very very careful...
Does she have any experience playing nicely with others? It seems as if her campaign style is all about attack.
This choice does as much for me as it would have done if the choice were Clarence Thomas or Ms. Rice. Powell however, may have made me pause if only to tie my shoes before I continued my journey in the direction of change identifiable, palpable, necessary, and achievable. I respect the general and realized that he was played by his own ambition (self-responsibility), and by the company he kept (the irresponsible shenanigans of Bush), a deadly combination in political circles I hear.
The choice is void of substance not the woman. Respect the governor but respect not how she is being used and assume she will have to look inside herself and contemplate the same things even as she smells her ambition cooking, her dough of possibility rising in the cauldron that is American presidential politics. Clarence Thomas is not suited to be VP based on color. Condoleezza Rice is not suited because she is a woman and because she is brown in hue. Sarah Palin is not suited to be the VP because she is a woman. It is not a question of her experience. It is a question of the experience of having been manipulated and lied to before so that some evil interest could have their way only to be sorry afterwards. It is the knowledge that endorsement of that which is broken insures non-function. Prescriptions of poison do kill. Calculations of divide, do divide. But I heard a man say -- Not this Time!
Governor Palin is actually a mixed bag. She's been good at some things, but this will be a real hard sell to some of the more rabid right-wingers of the Republican Party. Plus, as has been mentioned before, her being on McCain's ticket means he can no longer use the inexperience angle against Obama. The issue of someone being 'a heartbeat away from the presidency' is much more important when you consider the age and health of the beating heart in question.
After all is said and done, think the unthinkable; if President Obama were somehow taken out of the picture we could live with a President Biden. But if something happened to President McCain, what would this country and the world think of -- gulp -- President Sarah Palin? The citizens of this country and the world would consider us to be in a deep, deep bucket of...
Regardless of their combined strengths, I think the combination of their combined *weaknesses* will make the Republican ticket VERY vulnerable in this election.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
