Sarah Palin as Lightning Rod

The fall winds are driving the leaves off the political tree. They are falling, falling, falling into the Obama camp – just like the well orchestrated chorus of endorsements during the late primary season. Colin Powell, The Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times … .
What bothers me, more than just a bit, is the steady drumfire of comment that comes with these endorsements. One of the latest is from the LA Times, which labeled McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as “irresponsible” and a good reason not to support him. Powell echoed the sentiment, saying it raised questions of [McCain’s] “judgment”.
Excuse me. Exactly what sort of experience prepares someone to be President of the United States? We’ve had people with years of experience as governors, senators, generals and diplomats who made awful presidents – both John and John Quincy Adams, Warren Harding, Jimmy Carter, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, William Taft, Herbert Hoover, to name a few.
Then we’ve had people like Andrew Jackson who liked to shoot people he disagreed with, who launched a completely unauthorized invasion of Spanish Florida – that nearly involved us in a major war with Russia, Spain, France and Prussia (and England), which we were in no way prepared for. Incidentally he married his wife before she got legally divorced, thus making him a bigamist.
Irascible, with a “damn the law” attitude, a participant in standup gunfights in bars – can you imagine what the LA Times would say about him if he ran today? Yet most historians rate him as a pretty fair president. (Even though, as President, he told the Supreme Court to go enforce its own law in a decision he disagreed with.)
Then there was a ward boss from Illinois, a backwoods, circuit riding lawyer who loved to tell ribald jokes. He was prone to deep depressions. He got himself elected for a single term to Congress before the electorate repudiated him. His mere election to the presidency (and we knew this would happen before the vote) caused half the country to secede and launch our bloodiest war.
He teamed with abolitionists to win it, but did everything he could to prevent the abolition of slavery. This included offering the South a chance to re-enter Congress and vote down the Thirteenth Amendment two months before Lee gave up and surrendered.
What had prepared Abraham Lincoln to be President? What prepared a rich, sickly, absentee senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy?
Sarah Palin’s resume looks thin compared to John Quincy Adams, Warren Harding or US Grant’s, true. But it looks about as good as Lincoln’s. In some ways it’s better than Kennedy’s. So how irresponsible was it to nominate them?
Governor Palin has simply become a convenient whipping [girl] for people who are sick of George Bush. Fine, be sick of him. Most of us [Republicans] are. But don’t say that you’re repudiating the Republicans because of Sarah Palin’s inexperience.
It’s been said to the point of tedium that she has way more executive experience than Senator Obama. It’s true. She does. Lincoln, with all his warts and backwoodsiness, became a giant when the guns began to shoot. That was impossible to predict. It’s also impossible to predict what a governor from Alaska might do when faced with necessity.
I still believe a large part of the hostility toward her lies in the fact that America has become deeply suspicious of people who adhere too publicly to a religious faith, of whatever kind. Palin talks it and seems to believe it.
This has made her suspect from the outset. Only a nut could really believe, right? Since there are a lot of “nuts” out there who do believe, it’s safer to attack her inexperience than her God or her beliefs.
For McCain to balance his ticket with a woman is no more irresponsible than for a Senator from the East Coast to balance his ticket with a senator from Texas – or a candidate from California to balance his ticket with a governor from Maryland. That’s standard procedure.
Let’s cut the comedy. Talk about what really bothers you about Palin.