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BlackChampagne -- no longer new; improvement also in question.: Worst VP Ever?



Tuesday, September 02, 2008  

Worst VP Ever?


Volumes have already been written about Sarah Palin, McCain's laughably-unqualified choice for VP, a choice that was apparently entirely poll-driven and based on McCain's crush on a woman he'd met twice in his entire life. She's a hard core right wing Christian fundamentalist; a woman from well outside the mainstream of American political and social views, and even if that doesn't bother you, she's manifestly unfit to be VP, much less the proverbial heartbeat from the presidency. Fortunately, it's not as if McCain has a history of health problems, including cancer, and if elected would be, at 72, the oldest man to ever take office as US president. Oh wait...

At least Palin's selection has enlivened an otherwise tedious political race, as journalists dig through her very brief career and come away uniformly amazed and appalled at McCain's judgment in selecting her as his running mate. Palin's entire political experience was a short stint as the mayor of some podunk hicksville town, and a year and a half as the disinterested-in-policy governor of Alaska, the state with the 4th smallest population in the US. And that's not even getting to the good stuff, like her pending indictment for influence peddling in getting her sister's ex-husband fired from his job as a State Trooper, her past membership in an Alaskan secessionist movement party, her former job as the director of corrupt and disgraced senator Ted Stevens' fund raising group, her support of the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" boondoggle, the fact that her underage daughter is five-months knocked up by her boyfriend (who the press release amusing referred to as her future-husband), and much, much more.

This might be my favorite tidbit yet, though. It's from an Alaskan political blog, posted in 2006 when Palin was running for governor. The blogger sent a questionnaire about social and cultural issue to all the candidates. Two of whom answered. One of them was Palin, and her replies are quite enlightening. She's doctrinal on all the right wing "family" issues; anti-abortion, against real sex ed, for the (proven to be ineffective) abstinence only sex-ed (as her 17 y/o daughter's bulging belly testifies), etc. The funniest one is this:
11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.
This answer is clearly meant to be red meat to the Republican base, but I'm curious. Does she really believe it? I'm sure she supports the policy she advocates, but does she think what she said about "good enough for our founding fathers" has some historical accuracy? Since it's incorrect on multiple levels.

Most obviously, the US Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 (by a socialist who wanted to include "equality" and "fraternity" but knew it wouldn't be adopted if he did). It did not contain the phrase "under God" until those rhythm-wrecking words were awkwardly inserted in 1951, during the height of Cold War paranoia and anti-Soviet propaganda. Neither the pledge, nor the "under God" part, has anything to do with the Founding Fathers, by a good century.

More generally, the US constitution is probably the most famous secular document in existence, and it was certainly the first national charter in human history to not mention any specific religious dogmas, (there are several vague, theistic mentions of a "creator") and to explicitly remove any religious qualifications for citizenship or the holding of public office. That's covered thoroughly in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

It seems likely that Palin will be dumped long before the election, at the rate things are falling apart, but even if she's sent back to Anchorage in disgrace, at least her selection will have provided two benefits. (Three, if you count the amusement factor.) First, it's proven a useful tool for shining light on McCain's rash, impetuous nature (and his volatile temper will be revealed as calls for her to be dumped from the ticket grow louder). Second, it's drawing the fringe rightwing types out into the bright light of the media's attention, and the more regular US citizens see of the true beliefs and behavior of the American Taliban type fundamentalists, the sooner they'll be discredited and removed from public society.

The Bush Administration is overrun with such people; their ideology over reality approach is largely responsible for the disaster that the US occupation of Iraq descended into, the unconstitutional politicization of the US Attorneys' Office, our almost incalculable national debt, and a host of other political blunders. But the Bushies were run by savvy political operators like Karl Rove, who were good at presenting a sane face to the compliant press, while they skull-fucked all non-rich Americans behind the scenes. McCain's handlers are clearly less competent, at least in these early days. Let those of us who hope for a better tomorrow join in raising a ceremonial bottle of sauce to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, in prayer that McCain's guys won't have 4 years to learn better how to manipulate and scheme.

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Comments:

http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/4628/sarahpalinla4.png


 

I've not heard yet, but when was the kid born? I mean did she get home, at last, and just immediately head to the doctor and squatted or c-sectioned it out? Or was it okay to wait a few more weeks? If she waited a while longer, then most of the criticism of her giving the speech, flying home, etc, is invalidated.

As for the main issue of putting off the birth; not to get too rudely psychological on someone I know very little about, but consider this. They knew the unborn child had Downs Syndrome. That had to play into things, don't you think? They already had 4 healthy kids, she was in her 40s, they probably didn't particularly want a "special needs" child, but her religious convictions forbid her to abort it, like most people would. So the kid's going to be born with brain damage no matter what she does; kind of lessens her worry about damaging it with all the flying around and delaying labor, etc.

So there's less worry about the health of the child, and possibly somewhere in the back of her mind she's thinking, "Well, if it dies then it's not such a loss; I'd just have had an abortion if I weren't a public figure making a career out of opposing that right for other women."

Or perhaps I'm even more cynical and calculating in my hypothetical thought process than politicians?


 

I don't know when she actually gave birth, going by the chart I'd say once she got to the hospital?

And yes, the same thoughts crossed through my mind - an easy way to dispose of the kid without having to have an abortion. However, I think if the baby had died given these circumstances, she easily could have been said to have been criminally negligent, with the potential for a manslaugter type charge against her.


My captcha looks like some kind of syndrome: mbkydexa


 

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