Aug. 31, 2008
An Astonishingly Arrogant VP Selection
The New Republic: McCain's Palin Pick Gives Obama An Opportunity To Take The Edge On National Security
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Play CBS Video Video Inside The McCain-Palin Ticket In the wake of John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his VP running mate, Katie Couric speaks with Republican strategist Dan Bartlett about the future of this campaign.
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Video The Woman Making History Sarah Palin's career started in the PTA. She is a mother of five and on the day of her 20th wedding anniversary she was selected as the first female GOP VP candidate. Katie Couric reports.
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Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left hugs Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as McCain announces her as his Vice Presidential running mate Friday, Aug. 29, 2008 at Ervin J. Nutter Center in Dayton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)
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Photo Essay Sarah Palin Alaska's youngest and first female governor tabbed to be McCain's running mate.
It may be John McCain's birthday, but it seems like he's the one giving out gifts today. The selection of Palin doesn't simply, as others have pointed out, undermine the notion that Obama is too inexperienced to be president; it gives Obama the chance to actually take the edge on national security while making John McCain's age a central issue of the campaign.
Whatever the political calculations involved in picking a veep, the most important qualification for the vice presidency is the ability to assume the presidency in a crisis. Given that of the last 12 presidents, three have either died or resigned, this is hardly a hypothetical consideration--in fact, given that McCain is 72, it is a very real consideration. Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Gerald Ford all faced multiple foreign policy crises immediately upon assuming office, whether it was the onset of the Cold War, the North's invasion of South Korea, the Vietnam War, or the withering of détente and the resulting increase in nuclear tension with the Soviet Union. The next president will have to finish the denuclearization of North Korea; prevent the nuclearization of Iran; organize a departure from Iraq that maintains some level of stability; defeat a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan; establish, nurture, and make the most of a relationship with Pakistan's new leaders; and confront a revanchist Russia while preserving and enhancing its cooperation on nonproliferation and climate change--to say nothing of working with India, China, or our allies.
Could Sarah Palin conceivably manage this task? Her tenure as a small-town mayor and Alaska governor has given her no foreign policy experience whatsoever. True, Obama has little foreign policy experience either, as McCain and others have pointed out again and again. But during his time in national office he has demonstrated a clear commitment to the most pressing issues in American foreign policy. Take nuclear proliferation. Early in his tenure on the Foreign Relations Committee, Obama joined Richard Lugar's efforts to secure weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. Obama's first trip abroad as senator was to Russia and Ukraine to learn more about those efforts firsthand. In 2007, he cosponsored legislation with Senator Chuck Hagel calling for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and negotiation of a fissile material cut-off treaty. And he was the first major presidential candidate to embrace the steps laid out in 2007 by Sam Nunn, Bill Perry, George Shultz, and Henry Kissinger through which the United States would fight nuclear terrorism, reinvigorate the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.
Perhaps more important than the experience they embodied, these efforts demonstrate that Obama has a worldview. Obama recognizes the greatness and uniqueness of the United States, but he does not translate that exceptionalism into dominance or isolationism as conservatives often have. Instead, he sees it as the basis for U.S. leadership. He has laid out that worldview in myriad speeches and articles, and he has surrounded himself with pragmatists who have a record of translating that understanding of America's role into concrete gains for our national security. By contrast, there is no indication that Palin has even shades of a foreign policy worldview; a Nexis search doesn't turn up a single article that she has written on international affairs.
McCain undoubtedly thinks he has his national security bases covered; picking Palin shows that, unlike Obama, he doesn't need an eminence grise like Biden to add heft to his ticket. But surely McCain recognizes that Palin may have to fill his shoes someday. By choosing her anyway, he has demonstrated hubris well beyond anything Obama has displayed on his most arrogant day: a belief that he can master unforeseen circumstances, physical and otherwise, that are well beyond his control. This is insulting and dangerous and suggests that McCain may want to think twice before accusing Obama of putting his personal ambition ahead of the national interest.
No doubt Michelle is right that the Obama-Biden team will have to be careful attacking Palin's frighteningly thin resume and tenuous grasp of foreign policy. But surely a campaign that has been charged with being too naïve to manage rogue state dictators can have a bit of fun with the idea that a one-time Miss Congeniality could effectively face down Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Kim Jong Il. Surely, Obama's "eight is enough" quip ought to apply not only to President Bush's economic and foreign policy travesties, but to the elevation of mediocrity that has characterized his appointment of Michael Brown to FEMA and his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. And surely we can agree that if the McCain campaign was desperate to transparently court voters put off by Hillary Clinton's loss, there is no dearth of women with far greater intellectual, executive, and political abilities--abilities that would allow them to assume the presidency in a heartbeat.
By Peter Scoblic
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 89 Commentsbaby with the white house shotgun wedding.
John McCain will make a good midwife !!
Oh the girls named Bristol
are sharp as a pistol
Hmmmm... let''s see:
Fair wages for everyone? Obama? Check
Equal wages for women? Obama? Check
Everyone having a voice at the table? Obama? Check
Obama in ''08!
It''s America.... where we are FREE to dissent... the political process... remember your civics class in grade school? Oh, I forgot.... not in GOP Land!
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/30/201818/606
What about plagiarist Johnny and his Cross in the Sand fairy tale. Oops!
Joe Biden. The "cheney" to compensate for sweetie hussein''s gross inexperience; a plagiarizing expert who has stolen more words than Milton Berle (and he''s just as funny). Totally lacking in ethics, in his third-rate, mediocre law school Biden was only able to graduate 76th in a class of 85 - i.e., he was in the lowest 10.5%! Of course, while campaigning, he claimed falsely to have graduated in the "top half" of his class. A plagiarizer and a LIAR! As a politics-as-usual, 30+-year Washington parasite, Plagiarist-Joe never worked harder than in his efforts to kill bi-partisan legislation simply because it would have adversely affected the enormous income of his lobbyist son. Plagiarist-Joe is the poster-boy for all that is rotten in Washington. This choice illustrates the incredibly bad judgment of the Chicago Cretin.
Sarah Palin. A true political reformer who has cleaned-up one of the most politically corrupt states in the nation and who has shown a solid and unwavering commitment to ethical government. Palin is the antithesis of Plagiarist-Joe.
Tough choice? ----NOT!
(For the genetically low-IQ supporters of hussein: sorry about using all these adult words. Just so you''ll understand, "antithesis" means "opposite". Being a plagiarist is "bad" - not in sense of "good" but in the sense that going to jail for beating-up your old lady is "bad".)
Seems to be your way of handling things.
Posted by Xlib at 12:47 PM : Sep 01, 2008
Who said anything about abortion? Oh, that''s right, YOU did.
You know, your double standards are absolutely unbelievable.
I guess it would have been better if the daughter just waited until her third trimester, had a partial birth abortion, have the baby survive and be thrown in the trash can.
Seems to be your way of handling things.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/
Family values? Hahahahaha
Posted by Xlib at 11:28 AM : Sep 01, 2008
Naw Sparky Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Thomas Jefferson, those are LIBERALS! You? Your a poor uneducated 6th grade drop out who is scared to death of change and want to blame everything on "Liberals". I''ve read your post as well and you wouldn''t know a Liberal if one hit you between the eyes. Now stand... let the Fuhrer hear ya today!! SIEG HEIL McBUSH!!
Week. REAL week. Now it could be accepted from a first year nazi trainee but YOU? You are a full blown member of the Fourth Reich! You we can not excuse!! That''ll be twenty lashes with a wet shoe string and taking away your boot licking duties for a WEEK. Now stand! Let the Fuhrer hear you all the way down in Texas... After all they are TRYING so hard to make people think they care they should hear from you losers don''t you think??? Sing it out!! SIEG HEIL McBush!! ROFLMAO
Posted by promaclaura at 10:17 AM : Sep 01, 2008
Now you see! You Swastika Huggers have been lied to so long you don''t know the TRUTH when you see it. Take a few night classes...it''ll help!!
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