I would have entitled this entry “Sarah Palin — Naked” but that’s been taken. Worse, I have probably tricked people who don’t regularly read this blog into coming here expecting to see a photograph of Sarah Palin nude. Alas, no such luck. There are rumors that such photos exist and they may, but I don’t have any.
For those of you who did come here for nudes of Sarah Palin, stick around. Something important — and non-partisan — follows.
First though, we’ll strip Governor Palin of the political clothing she donned especially for this autumn’s fashion and electoral season. Because she wants to be one heartbeat of a 72 year-old man away from the presidency, this looks like a reasonable thing to do.
We’ll begin with the story of refusing the money for the bridge to nowhere. Actually she wanted the money and the bridge until it became apparent the bridge idea would be laughed out of Congress. She settled for the money which was spent on other projects in Alaska.
She does want that $2 billion dollar road to Anchorage which would go through her home town though. Paid for by all U.S. citizens.
Then there is that natural gas pipeline. She claims credit for a pipeline that is not yet built and for which there is a substantial debate as to its economic usefulness, a debate beyond the competency of your author to declaim on.
Then there is “troopergate.” Until recently all we knew was that allegations exist that she fired the head of the Alaska state police for not firing her former brother-in-law who was involved in a child custody dispute with her sister. But now the McCain campaign pried a top flight lawyer away from prosecuting terrorists and sent him to Alaska to try to shut down that investigation. And her husband will ignore a lawful subpoena, something which would land the rest of us in jail. If you have nothing to hide, why try to hide it?
She opposes equal pay for women.
And let’s quickly dispose of the idea that she is ready to handle the nation’s foreign affairs because there is a spot on an Alaskan island from which one can see — only on a rare clear day — the distant coastline of remote Russia. By that reasoning I am qualified to be Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff because I once lived down the street from a general.
But we probably lay too much stress on experience. Our most experienced president had been Ambassador to Russia and England, had turned down a proffered appointment to the Supreme Court, served five terms in the House of Representatives and three in the U.S. Senate and had been Secretary of State before being elected president.
That was James Buchanan, one of our worst presidents.
Arguably the president with the least political experience had served only one term as a junior Congressman, and that years before he assumed the presidency.
That was Abraham Lincoln.
And Walter Lippman wrote about a presidential candidate in 1932, “He is a pleasant man who, without any apparent qualifications for the job, wants very much to be President of the United States.”
That was Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Nevertheless, in the following contest who do you pick to win?
versus
Finally, we need to rid ourselves of the idea that our president ought to be someone with whom we’d enjoy having a beer with. I want the president to be smarter than I am and to surround himself with people even smarter than he is. I don’t want a president as cold-hearted as Vladimir Putin but I do want one as smart and as calculating.
I’d love to have a beer with John McCain. I don’t want to have one with Barack Obama. Which is a good reason to vote for Barack Obama.
