The Supreme Distraction

I like to watch and listen before I jump to conclusions, but John McCain’s selection of Alaska’s governor, Sarah Palin brought out some immediate reaction. Even as I was hearing news of the new VP pick while having my early morning breakfast in Denver, I was struck by several things I heard about Sarah Palin just as I was hearing her name for the first time. Palin is a first-term governor from an unusual state, anti-choice to the point of being against abortion even if it saves the woman’s life or in the case of incest, so pro gun that she advocates shooting bears from the air, promoting home schooling over a public school education and completely against sex education in schools in favor of abstinence only classes. We can see how well that works in the Palin home-schooling educational plan.

But even after mulling over all of this information and taking it into consideration and putting it into perspective with realizing that I will never find a candidate that I completely agree with, I recognize that most of these things are simply a matter of personal choice and just different from my outlook and the way I look at my life and how I live it. We were originally told that McCain, who is now 72 years old and vulnerable to a charge of being old and out of touch, would need and want to pick a vice-presidential candidate ready to take over immediately should something happen to him, with a track record and documented experience in the economy and yes, an established foreign policy resume.

So with an acknowledgement that Palin has some significant intimacy with energy issues and deals with the oil industry and pipeline issues, which are inherent in the daily life of an Alaskan politician, it is not an appropriate qualification to say that she is a wife and mother, and although she did serve two terms as the mayor of a relatively small and insignificant town, a place where the issues plaguing most mid-size and large cities are not present, but calling her the commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard is both an inappropriate reference and an insult. I took the liberty of looking up the recent activities of the Alaska National Guard, and I don’t think that the occasional rescue mission and the receipt of an award for bravery tests the mettle or split-second decision-making prowess of any elected official.

The sad thing is that between Hurricane Gustav, the pregnancy of Palin’s daughter and the admittedly interesting and provocative selection of such an enigmatic figure is overriding the one thing that is being essentially ignored…this woman just got her passport last year. Fox News, Cindy McCain and other political pundits pointing out that Alaska being up near Russia does not a successful foreign policy make. Palin has already gone on record just last month admitting that she wasn’t aware of what the vice-president actually does, and she has also taken positions that are so extreme on the environment that she has called for removing the polar bear from the endangered species list and does not believe in global climate change nor would she do anything about it.

John McCain and Sarah Palin must be questioned and challenged vigorously just as this interview of a McCain spokesperson took place yesterday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYYiw_y2qDI. To my observation, media outlets across this country are requesting interviews with Palin and McCain and these requests are being ignored or at least postponed. Yes, Palin is an energetic, attractive and seemingly well-spoken advocate for her positions, the State of Alaska and the issues that affect her family and her community in the state, but her flip-flop on Ted Stevens’ bridge to nowhere must be investigated along with her support of a group that has pushed the notion that the State of Alaska secede from the United States and become an independent territory.

More importantly, this is another demonstration of John McCain’s kneejerk decision-making and shortsighted perspective that calls his judgment into question. I can only imagine that the same handlers that disallowed the selection of a Joe Lieberman and a Tom Ridge must have really rallied against a Sarah Palin. The fact that she is a woman is very appealing, but her drastic and almost draconian viewpoints, policies and life-style are completely and diametrically opposed to the agenda and perspectives of most of the women in this country, particularly those passionate and potentially disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters that may be looking for an alternative to Obama. If that was the motivation behind the selection of Palin, it was rather misguided and thoroughly miscalculated.

But I can’t say this strongly enough: Sarah Palin is simply not qualified to be the vice-presidential candidate running with John McCain. Although the odds are against it – and I certainly wish him a long and healthy life – John McCain may have a serious health issue and is a multiple cancer victim. His vice-president must have vast experience, be a known quantity and have an established foreign policy and exposure. Ms. Palin has already admitted that she has no such policy, and even though she at some point will have go undergo an intense crash course in the ways of the world, I for one am not comfortable with a complete neophyte suddenly being thrust into the presidency and having to make immediate and significant decisions on Iraq, al-Qaeda, Russia, Europe, Israel, Sudan, Mexico and the myriad of serious issues surrounding the relationships and conflicts that demand familiarity, comfort and diplomacy experience that she arguably does not possess.

Barack Obama set just the right tone regarding Governor Palin’s daughter, that this is an internal family issue and that children of candidates are particularly off limits. I do respect his words and agree with him. But this information, or for that matter the fact that Palin is a woman, won Miss Congeniality in a beauty pageant, has five children, one just born with Down’s Syndrome and a son soon to go off to Iraq, should not cloud our vision as to who this woman is and what she stands for. I do not think even an informal investigation into what she advocates, the views she espouses and how completely out of touch she is with those of us in the lower 48 should be ignored or glossed over while we get wowed with her irreverence, the McCain spokespeople’s bluster or the pundits falling all over each other to point out how amazing she is and her vast experience heading the State of Alaska, a state that everyone knows is representative of the rest of this country and where everyone looks to say as Alaska goes, so goes the nation. Right!

What an insult to women, to governors like Charlie Crist and Tim Pawlenty who are so well-known and accomplished being passed over, to those of us who believe strongly in a woman’s right to choose, believe that weapons should not be promoted and disseminated freely in our society, believe that global climate change is real and that we should work to protect our environment and not drill for oil in every available territory without considering the ramifications and feel that we should be free to raise our families in the way that we choose to without being forced to have any religious education or moral restrictions or lack thereof.

Let’s encourage our media, our representatives and anyone with a voice to perform the vetting process that McCain and his surrogates apparently did not do. I think it’s an important indication of things to come that last Friday, we witnessed the introduction of Sarah Palin to the world with her five-month pregnant daughter being covered with a blanket, holding Palin’s baby and no mention that the 17-year-old high school –aged daughter is expecting a baby. I feel strongly that this lack of disclosure is a window of things to come, and I think we all need to look very closely at the frightening thought of an unconventional John McCain as president, an incredibly right wing Sarah Palin pushing McCain even further toward evangelical conservatism and a White House that once again pursues its own agenda without much care or consideration of what the vast majority of the American people want or need.