Why I Don't Think Governor Palin Should be the Next Vice President
It isn’t the five kids; she’d have the use of the Vice President’s mansion down the street from the White House. I’m figuring they have nannies, maids, tutors, etc. as needed. We’ll see if she fires the chef, as she said she did in the Alaska governor’s mansion, or tries to sell the daily limo on EBay.
It isn’t the daughter’s unfortunate condition and impending marriage. Let’s assume the kids are really dumb. That would just be a new second family fully in line with the tradition of other first families that embarrassed their famous parents. Various Kennedy kids. Billy Carter. The Reagan brother whose name I’ve forgotten. Reagan’s kids that he was embarrassed about, though for no good reason. The current Bush kids that did some of the stupid things that kids do. The list can go on.
It isn’t her insignificant “executive experience.” If you compare the four candidates, she has the most, as minimal as it is.
It isn’t even that she was for “earmarks” before she was against them. I don’t like earmarks; but I understand that they are a reality in politics.
It isn’t because she didn’t write the speech that she delivered last night. (The guy that wrote most of it has been writing Republican speeches for quite awhile now.)
I won’t be voting for Senator McCain and Governor Palin because the great majority of what they want to do is not good, from my point of view.
Governor Palin made a joke in her speech last night about Obama wanting “terrorists” to have their rights read to them. She apparently doesn’t think the pesky first ten amendments to the Constitution mean much. My view is that no one accused of something is ”it” until a real court says they are. In my view, our government should treat people the way I would want to be treated, which doesn’t include being put on ice for years without the ability to get to a court. Governor Palin seems to have a lot in common with the current VP, Dick Cheney. Former Attorney General Gonzales. W. I find it interesting that other than Senator McCain’s insistence that we need to hang out in Iraq until we “win,” whatever that means, he actually, probably, isn’t Bush incarnate. From what she said last night, she wants us to think that she is.
Then there’s the pro-life or anti-choice stance, whichever version you prefer. If I were in a position having to consider whether to undergo an abortion, I probably would choose to preserve the life or potential life within me. But, I cannot understand someone that wants to, indeed, demands the right, to make that choice for someone else.
Guns. Great photo ops those dead beasts and drawing a bead with soldiers standing around are. If it were up to me, I’d restrict them as much as the current Supreme Court will allow. I know, if you ban guns, only the criminals will have guns. How about if you change what the real economic price of a gun is? Absolute liability for the manufacturer of a gun used to injure or kill someone. How many S&W’s, Glocks, etc., and at what price, will be sold? Over time, the current supply dwindles. Fewer accidental and intentional deaths. Not rocket science, not constitutional law, just, to my mind, common sense. (Read some economic law stuff from Judge Posner from Chicago, a conservative federal appellate judge. He might well be a Republican.)
Let’s talk about foreign policy. Governor Palin jabs at Senator Obama for being willing to talk to heads of state that oppose us without setting pre-conditions. We’ve had seven and a half years of a cowboy president that threatens and doesn’t talk, to no avail. The cold hard fact is that this is not 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990 or 2000. America is the lone “super-power” in a military sense, in the world. Use of that status, without the necessary concomitant of economic and moral super-power status in unavailing. Here, Governor Palin joins Senator McCain in playing big dog. “Victory in Iraq is in sight!” Bush has spent two terms redefining victory with McCain at his side. Palin makes three. Please tell me what a win means.
There’s more; but, you might see it’s clear that Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things. She seems to be Senator McCain with some charisma. Bad views, well spoken, do not a Vice President make.
I invite you, my conservative readers, you know who you are, to tell me I’m wrong in my views. Humor and glibness are welcome, accompanied by reasoned analysis.
8 comments:
You're right. The only thing she has going for her is a bit of charm and the ability to give a great speech. I suppose the same could be said for Obama, but at least I agree with his proposed policies.
Well, at least she's not boring right?
I bet she's received more searches on the 'net than Joe Biden and John McCain combined.
It's gonna be interesting.
Hedy,
I'm not voting for the GOP people; but, I'm not yet on board with Obama. Though, I thought he did well in the first installment of his interview with Bill O'Reilly tonight on some of the things that worry me about him.
Debo,
She isn't boring, I think I'd like to hang out with her and talk about why I'm full of &(^%, just like I do with Big Rick; though, I think I'd still think like I do, Sarah and Rick are wrong on a lot of important matters.
Doesn't look as if you have conservative response as yet. Not that you would get it here either. I would question your assertion that her executive experience trumps the other three. I think too much is made of senators and representatives not being able to step into that role. Creationism on par with evolution is a problem. Not that I think there isn't some intelligent design. But not to go there now...
It just isn't about her. She was apparently a gift to the hard right. I think the hope is that the warmth, the charm, the folksy family will mask the ideology.
I probably wouldn't qualify as a "conservative" either... I'm more of a contrarian, disagreeing with all and sundry just to stay in practice -- arguably conservative in a room full of liberals, liberal in a room full of conservatives.
But... as for McCain on Iraq: He's been an unabashed booster, yes, famously returning from a 'trip to the marketplace' ... wearing a flak jacket, surrounded by heavily armed troops, with helicopters overhead, and proclaiming how safe he felt.
I should hope so.
BUT -- McCain pushed, prodded and goaded Bush into finally trying the surge which -- even Obama agrees -- has yielded positive results, positive here being defined as tamping down the violence to some extent and bolstering the resolve of the Iraqi government to seriously talk to us about leaving.
I believe McCain was also a proponent of the more-boots-on-the-ground theory so famously pooh-poohed by Secretary Rumsfeld at the outset of our Iraqi adventure. History will show, I think, that our failure to provide adequate occupation troops (certainly when coupled with our insistence that the then-existing Iraqi army be disbanded) led directly to the horrors of the insurgency. (Of course, so did the invasion in the first place... but we don't need to say that expressly, do we?)
McCain's seeming retrenchment on the subject of torture strikes me as mere pandering to his base. If John McCain, in office, would not be a staunch foe of torture, then there is no hope for us at all. Obama, on the other hand, a lawyer without first-hand experience, might be amenable to the siren songs of other lawyers....
As for the pro-life business. I think it was this month's issue of the Smithsonian Magazine that provides a retrospective of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. I was struck -- though of course the article NOWHERE suggests this -- by the similarities between the arguments made then by the proponents of slavery -- legalistic, based on what passed for science in those days, couched in apologies (I don't think I'd ever own one, but....) -- and the arguments made now by the proponents of legalized abortion.
In the present day, of course, the battle between pro-aborts and anti-aborts is not sectional, although more of the former are found in cities and more of the latter seem to be of rural origin, so the analogy is not perfect.
No analogy is.
But -- as with slavery, and particularly the territorial expansion of slavery (Dred Scot), the current extent of abortion rights is contingent of the survival of a dubious Supreme Court precedent.
Surely, even if you think it great policy, you wouldn't argue that Roe v. Wade is good constitutional law -- and it's long since lost whatever scientific validity it may have had. Years ago Sandra Day O'Connor famously observed that Roe v. Wade was on a collision course with itself. If you've read the opinion recently, the collision occurred long ago. Democratic litmus testers in Congress don't demand fealty to the forced reasoning of Roe v. Wade but to the important principle of stare decisis.
If Roe were overturned tomorrow, the elected representatives of the people in the various states could then consider their constituents' wishes and views. A poisonous, divisive boil would be lanced on the body politic. Abortion virtually on demand would remain legal in New York, California, Oregon, maybe Vermont, maybe Massachusetts -- it would be virtually illegal in several states -- and variously limited in all of the others as people -- through their representatives struggled to figure out when life begins and when it must be protected.
Would that really be so terrible?
If you're still with me, I worry about McCain's views on the Constitution more because of McCain-Feingold than anything else -- but, if President Bush has played fast and loose with the Constitution (and there are instances on which almost all can and should agree he has) he has followed the example of President Clinton before him. And not just Clinton's example. In fact, the expansion of presidential authority in the last century has often been at odds with what I'd consider respect for the Constitution. I don't know that any President in the foreseeable future isn't going to be sorely tempted to continue the trends of subverting Congressional authority by use of executive orders, etc. And since Mr. Obama has far more expectations of what the government can and should do than does Mr. McCain... would he not fall more readily into that trap? Mr. Obama has begun to think about governing already -- you'll note his change on immunity for telecom providers....
As for guns... guns remain entirely illegal in the great City of Chicago where I live... and guns claim new lives each and every day. Of what value, then, is gun control? I do not believe it possible in the current climate, but I would love to see a reasoned, dispassionate study of gun crime in concealed carry jurisdictions vs. cities like Chicago where gun ownership is (or has been) virtually prohibited. Since I am not now, nor have I even been a card-carrying member of the NRA, I could see expanding liability for the consequences of gun crimes to persons knowingly selling to street gangs, etc., just as a car owner is liable when he gives keys to a drunk... or, perhaps more apt, when a bartender serves an already overserved patron. But I wouldn't buy strict liability.
As for foreign policy -- how widely and deeply Gov. Palin has read -- and how widely and deeply she reads going forward -- is more important, ultimately, that having shared cocktails over many years with the Ambassadors or Ministers of various Powers. Neither she nor Senator Obama can be said to have hobnobbed much with the greats and near-greats of the nations of the world. If elected, though, Ms. Palin will have ample time to read and study up on and meet the world's leaders because, frankly, the Vice President doesn't have a whole heck of a lot to do. It may, I think, be fairly pointed out that Mr. Obama will not have this same luxury of time should he be elected. (Thus we had his recent, whirlwind Grand Tour.)
Did I miss anything?
I am really tired of right wing republians telling me what to believe and trying to pass laws to force their views on me. It is not so much about abortion as about choice. As I have preached before - not everyone has the same view on the begining of life.
Gov Palin shoved her daughter's pregnancy into the national spotlight. What kind of a mother does that. She has put her political ambitions above her daughter's welfare and for this and many other things she has said, I can not trust her judgement.
Curmudgeon,
That was a tour de force (if that's spelled correctly) comment. You should revise it and post it. I agree with some of it and disagree with other parts. You are very right about McCain and torture. With some thought, I may give you my thoughts on what you've said.
SM,
Curmudgeon, took the lawyerly approach, you took the "don't give me this #%^&" approach. I go back and forth on how to express my ire.
Sarah Palin reminds me of many small town Red State folks I've gotten friendly with over the years. They are often personable,smart, very involved in the local culture, and "family men or women".
Unfortunately, they also tend to be anti-intellectual, moralistic, and racist. Their religious framework is a confusing mess of "Jesus Saves (Us)", "The Poor are Lazy", "Kill the Islamic Terrorists", and "God Made the World in Six Days".
Most republicans seem to be delighted with Palin, although she pretty well fits the picture I've painted above. How sad!
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