Another Palin Apostate: McCain's Judgment on Palin For Vice President is a Worry for the Country

Another Palin Apostate: McCain's Judgment on Palin For Vice President is a Worry for the Country

  by Erik K.
(Writer for NeoConstant)

Read here

For some time now–and increasingly over the past week or two–my discomfort with Palin has been increasing.

I know that by writing this, some conservatives will think me treacherous, but I have to say it. I was wrong :

Palin is NOT ready to be Vice President, let alone President, and the McCain camp was WRONG to pick her.

From my very light vetting of her, I came away with the belief that:

• She was an extremely savvy politician–must have been, given her meteoric rise in Alaska.
  
  
• I liked her reformist image. I liked that she’d given her own party hell in Alaska.
  
  
• I liked her because she seemed smart, witty, charming, and she was (let’s face it) an attractive candidate in more ways than one. Her portfolio was greatly assisted by her beauty.
  
  
• The GOP, it seemed, needed someone like Palin.

On that front, I was right. The GOP did need someone like Palin. Just not Palin.

Not someone this naive about global affairs.

And I’m not alone. Kathleen Parker writes:

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League. Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there…

And there are more. The Palin choice that so wowed and wooed the Conservative base is starting to meet with some doubt, regret, and flat out animosity.

James Fallows writes:

She is not as smart or disciplined as Barack Obama. If she were, she would sound better than she does at this point. And the McCain team has done absolutely nothing to defuse these problems — nor, to be honest, has Palin herself apparently learned the first thing about successfully finessing questions she is not ready to handle.

Conservative columnist Rod Dreher has this to say:

Palin is mediocre, again, regurgitating talking points mechanically, not thinking. Palin’s just babbling. She makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero….

…I am well andtruly embarrassed for her. I think she’s a good woman who might well be a great governor of Alaska. But good grief, just watch this train wreck.

David Brooks chimes in:

Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.

And there are more.

George Will, and David Frum, who writes

“So this is the future of the Republican party you are looking at: a future in which national security has bumped down the list of priorities behind abortion politics, gender politics, and energy politics.”

Which is where I come in.

This is NOT the vision of the Republican Party I care to see.

I am not a social issues voter. I am more annoyed than anything that we have to have this abortion debate every four years.

Gay marriage should be State politics, not national politics.

Can we talk economics and security please? These, to me, are relevant issues and especially for this race. I want to know who the best candidate for the economy will be–and after these past few weeks, the financial meltdown, and so forth, I’m rather inclined to not trust either party, and to not subscribe wholly to the idea of free market at all costs with no real oversight, no true fiscal conservatism, nothing.

McCain will no doubt operate more like a Democrat than a Republican in many of his economic policies, except he will be somewhat watered down by his Party and advisers, giving us a half-baked economic policy at best.

And Palin?

As far as I can tell her grasp of the economy is no better. She’s really a populist, who used higher taxes on oil companies to give payouts to Alaskans (no wonder her popularity there was high!) Not really the most conservative of moves, though…

Then there is national security.

McCain is as strong as they come in this arena, and it was his strength here that made me like him as much as I did. He’s very savvy on foreign policy issues, and was quite on the mark with his support of the surge. He would make a good commander in chief.

But he could kick the bucket in a year, leaving us with commander in chief Sarah Palin.

I shudder at the thought.

Even more than at the thought of Obama as head of the military, amazingly. I think Obama will follow a very Clintonian foreign policy, and I’m not against that. Clinton was every bit a liberal neocon with his interventionist policy in the Balkans, in Somalia, and in Iraq (sort of).

So I was wrong. I was just plain wrong about Palin. And so was McCain, though he can’t admit it now.

Kathleen Parker said it best:

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

  Go to Latest Posting

---

Comments 0

---