McCain-Palin

A confession: as late as last spring, I naively thought that all of the remaining candidates (McCain, Obama, and Clinton) were acceptable.  I breathed a sigh of relief that the shoot-from-the-hip, often-wrong-but-never-in-doubt attitude that had marked the Bush administration would be replaced a a smarter, calmer, more reasonable regime.  How wrong I was.  I hadn't yet realized that the old kinder, gentler, smarter McCain would be wholly consumed by the new impulsive, dishonest, and pandering McCain. 

Boy, howdy, was my relief misplaced.   There are myriad examples that one could give to show that the former leader of the straight-talk express, the country-first war hero has been replaced by a power-hungry win-at-all-costs narcissist.  But the best, most obvious example is his choice of running mate.  Many of us had grave reservations when McCain chose a relative unknown who had less than two years of gubernatorial experience, and before that had been merely a small town mayor.   But maybe she was an easy study, a bright fast learner who had a real interest in an knowledge of foreign policy and economics.   But any thought that she is a bright, faster-learner or is even moderately knowledgeable about foreign or even domestic policy has been dashed.   Surely the interviews she's given (all three of them in the past month!) indicate tha this is a person out of her depth.    Need proof?   Here it is.  This is from her interview with Katie Curic:

Couric: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with healthcare, housing, gas, and groceries—allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy—instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

Palin : That's why I say, I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bailout. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are [glances down] concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed [glances down] to help shore up our economy. [glances down] Helping the—oh, it's got to be about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform [glances down] and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief [glances down] for Americans, and trade we've—we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout [is a part of that].

Should John McCain become president, his first important decision will have been his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. No one can seriously say that he chose her because his sober analysis led him to believe that she was the best possible person to take over should McCain not be able to continue in office.  No, McCain's choice was grounded in one consideration: what would give him the best chance of winning this election.  Palin certainly energized the base for a while.  But I have to believe that even the most conservative person who is thoughtful will by this time be having second thoughts.  And those second thoughts should not be only about Palin's readiness to be the leader of the free world. They should first and foremost be about motivations and decision-making procedures of the man who would be president.   

I submit that by choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain demonstrates that he isn't fit to be President of the United States.