While I'm enthused by McCain's pick of Sarah Palin to be the VP nominee over the next few weeks she still needs to show that she belongs in that spot. She will get that chance and my gut tells me she will do just fine with people who give her a fair hearing. The volume of condescension and flat-out bizarre thinking that has been directed at her already is kind of amazing to me though. I just don't get this kind of, er, "logic" from David Frum:
Mr. McCain's supporters argue that he is more serious about national security than Barack Obama. But the selection of Sarah Palin invites the question: How serious can he be if he would place such a neophyte second in line to the presidency? Barack Obama at least balanced his inexperience with Mr. Biden's experience. What is Mr. McCain doing?
So it's more of a problem to have a neophyte as second in line than to vote one into the presidency itself? What kind of batshit crazy is that?
Yeah, McCain is getting up there in years, but this deathwatch stuff is just bullshit. Any statistical increase that his age brings to the chance of him dying in office should be balanced by the fact that there's an army of people dedicated to keeping him healthy and safe. Is that a guarantee? Of course not. Tomorrow is not guaranteed to any of us. We should use some reason in thinking about such things and I think it's reasonable to think that John McCain will almost certainly complete a first term, perhaps two if given the chance.
If Sarah Palin proves out to have the values, courage, and intelligence that I think she has then this becomes a non-issue very shortly into a McCain administration. Once the administration is in place then Palin would have all of the resources of that administration to call on should something happen to McCain. At that point the raw quality of the person will matter more than decades of experience. I suspect I would still rather have Palin around in that situation than Joe Biden.
The vitriol being directed at Palin from the nutroots is to be expected. Most of the rest of the criticism is being leveled by Washington insiders and in those cases I think inexperience is a code word for outsider. Well guess what Washington insiders, that's a feature not a bug to those of us outside the beltway. AJ Strata nails it this morning:
Let’s take this discussion out of the echo chamber of the DC talking heads and political leaders - they ARE the problem in the first place. Those 80% wrong track numbers are aimed squarely at the political dynasties and cliques of vacuous journalists and media power brokers who endlessly bicker and go on and on inanely about some marginal PR spin. America is fed up with the entire political scene right now. Across Congress, the press and the President the man holding the highest respect in this cesspool of dysfunction is President Bush, and he is not popular by any means.
Damn straight. Palin shouldn't get a free pass and still has some proving to do. When reading people who are writing her off without giving her a chance though, we should consider the source and scrutinize their words carefully. Their credibility is as much on the line as Palin's. And they just might be saying more about themselves than Sarah Palin.
Oh, and this from THS is interesting also. I think that feeling is more widespread than Washington insiders might understand. They ignore it at their peril.
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