So Sarah Palin. I like her. Graham woke me up the other day with a "He picked his VP and it's Sarah Palin, the Gov. from Alaska" text message.
K that didn't mean much to me. Alaska. It's cold there. Like, really cold. Glaciers, ANWR, and block parties with Russia. Isn't that pretty much it? Still, after I started watching a few things on TV and doing some reading online, I really started to like her. She's young and eager and not afraid to take on this huge battle of proving her competency and capability regardless of being "experienced" or not. It is this huge stink the Democrats have raised that pisses me off, though. Here we go:
1: Sarah Palin on perezhilton.com
I read Perez Hilton on a regular basis because a little gossip is kind of fun from time to time. It's what he's been saying about McCain's VP candidate that has been driving me crazy though. These thoughts are just things that popped up while I was reading a few new posts he has up.
This little snapshot was featured in Perez's most recent overblown tidbit about Palin's "Skeletons in the Closet". Apparently Palin's people released this picture to AP, God knows why, but who cares?! In case you can't read it, her shirt says "I may be broken but I'm not flat busted." Ummm she was in college. The fact that she was young and had a sense of humor, be it cheesy or not, doesn't make her incapable of being a successful VP. It just disgusted me. The bit about her that featured this picture also went on to say how she may have lead her teenaged pregnant daughter Bristol by example with her shotgun wedding in 1988. Her oldest, Track, was born 8 months later. Ummm she was 24. She was young. She married the guy, and they're still married and going strong. People make mistakes. We get up. We try our best to make things right, and we go on with life. He also posted a few of Bristol's MySpace pictures that show her drinking at a party. She's 17, and he is basically mocking Palin by pointing out her daughter's participation in underaged drinking. Come on! Hey, Perez! How many times did you dabble with a little alcohol before you turned 21? I know I did. Again, it doesn't make it ok, but come on! Kids do things, no matter how much their parents advise against it. That doesn't demean Palin's capabilities in the slightest.2: Palin's Completely Compact Platform of Values
Perez, in an earlier post, said "Everybody's got their skeletons, but not every gun-toting, pro-life, anti-gay rights mother of 5 is running for Vice President!"
A) It was a recent decision for me, but maintaining the institution of marriage as a union between a man and woman doesn't exactly qualify as anti-gay rights. I'm against gay marriage, but that doesn't mean I'm against the concept of things like civil unions which grant complete economic, etc. rights to homosexual couples in America. If your loved one is in the hospital, by ALL means, you should be allowed in the room; if you love someone and live with them, you deserve all the rights to tax breaks, insurance, all that. Beyond my newly rediscovered conservatism, I am a Christian who believes marriage is a God-breathed sanction between a man and a woman. It's a technicality, but that's how it works in my opinion. It really is as simple as that. Many would say that denying marriage is anti-gay rights, and I can see your point, but I have to disagree.
2) Palin also supports the second amendment and wants to allow citizens the option of owning a firearm. Guns scare the crap out of me! I hate them! ...but it's because I know nothing about them. It's also why I'm scared of traveling to China not knowing the language or whatever. There's lots of reasons why the second amendment is important, but you've heard them all before, so I'll continue with the list.
3) Britol's Baby and Pro-Life Conservatism: So her daughter got knocked up. I hate when people are all down with lots of sex, safe sex, but if you get pregnant, you're a slut. Ok, so the condom broke, and oops now you're a slut. It's stupid. Again, it doesn't make it ok, but leave the kid alone! She made a bad choice, but she's almost 18 and she's choosing to marry the father. She didn't choose to murder Cupcake or Atlas or Ukulele or whatever she decides to name the little one. She chose to face the fact that she made her choice when she had possibly unprotected sex at her age and in her situation. Her mother and the rest of her family are supporting her and plan to help her through this process. I think that is highly admirable of Palin, not because she possibly went through the same thing, but that she is showing a strong family unit, based on unconditional love regardless of outside circumstances (like, umm, running for Vice President of the United States). Good for her. Bristol is so blessed to have parents who are supporting her and not just kicking her out to fend for herself... or, like Obama has said he'd do, encourage Bristol not to "ruin her life" by having a baby and to have it "taken care of".
3: Country First
They're also reporting that Palin used to support the Alaskan Independence Party, the kids that support Alaska's separation from the US and becoming its own country. (Bad call, by the way. We're talking like Greenland: The Sequel, and who wants that? Except could you imagine how crazy rich they'd be once they could drill as much as they wanted and start selling the oil to the US... actually maybe that is a good call, hmmmmm) Anyway, they (the liberals who are nervous and have resorted to covering their worry with candidate gossip) say her involvement with the party is not in line with McCain's "Country First" campaign theme. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought "Country First" implied that other political approaches looked at politics first, what is expected of them on the Hill and what the people "expect" from their leader. The concept of "Country First" means who gives a crap about what Capitol Hill wants?! What is best for the country as a whole? What does the country need? What can be done to help improve the country, not the reputation and wallet size of its elected politicians? Just because Palin once saw the potential of a successful, independent Alaska doesn't mean she doesn't support the concept of looking out for the people. Her personal life obviously has enough red flags to rake her over the coals; if she didn't put her country first, why would she put herself through this? If McCain didn't put his country first, if he wanted to fit the mold and play the games, he wouldn't have taken the risky but right choice of Palin.
4: To sum it up...
Palin has executive experience, more than all the other parts of this foursome combined (which is zero). She is a hardworking mother and successful leader. Her son is going to Iraq next week, so her choices concerning the war in Iraq aren't just "Country First", they're "Family First", and that is a good component of motivation. She supports and believes in the core values of the Republican party. Who cares if the woman has a couple kids who have rebelled a little?! Nearly half the country is going to rebel against her in a way as soon as she takes office, so oh well. People do that. People get headstrong, like me, and think they're right, like me. Except not like me, because I AM right. :)
So there you have it. A rambling, I know, but I just had to vent about that one. Have a lovely RNC!
3 comments:
There's something not right about the idea of Bristol Palin as reasonable fair game. How Sarah got the job OTOH ...
Just a few thoughts, Les...sorry if it gets long. I don't get to talk politics too often :o)
1. Most people don't get their political news from Perez Hilton, and the man doesn't really exhibit class when he's dealing with anyone, so I doubt anyone is going to take him seriously enough to let him inform their opinion of a candidate for the second highest office in our nation. If they do, then it says something very sad about the state of our country.
2. I think "the liberals who are nervous and have resorted to covering their worry with candidate gossip" underestimates a lot of liberals out there. There are some very significant, legitimate concerns regarding this choice: McCain admittedly only met Palin one time earlier this year, to discuss an oil situation in Alaska, spoke to her on the phone briefly, and met with her once more the week that he picked her. That doesn't say "Pick someone I know and can trust" to me. In fact, there are countless interviews with officials from both the city she served as mayor and from the State of Alaska who say that they were never asked about her - standard procedure when investigating a nominee for such a high office, especially one with an open ethics investigation on her back. And seriously, Alaska isn't a big place... if people were asking around, it would be noticed.
3. There's also the fact that her website listed no foreign policy views whatsoever in the hours after her nomination - there is no record of her ever having an interest in foreign policy at all, aside from one interview in which she said something like "Yeah, we should probably have a plan in Iraq" -- that doesn't make me feel incredibly confident in the possibility of her being second in line for the role of Commander In Chief. (and no, Cindy McCain, being close to Russia does not count as foreign policy experience.)
4. She does have a son going to Iraq, but so does Biden, and you don't see him using it as a campaign point, because he actually has a political record that he can talk about. People like comparing her experience to Obama, but he has dealt with these issues, surrounded himself with experts, and has proven himself capable of understanding (and caring about) nuanced FoPo situations. Also, just his campaign staff and budget dwarf the city of Wasilla by ridiculous amounts, and she was the governor of a state with a constant surplus budget... not exactly preparation for (insert precise amount of our trillions of dollars in debt...)
5. She lies! I don't know what a bridge to nowhere is exactly, but if you look at Alaskan news articles, it's pretty clear that she supported it, and yet it's been a major point since she was nominated that she didn't. Also, she said that Obama has never authored a bill or a reform, but he sponsored 820 laws in Illinois, authored 152 and co-sponsored 427 in Washington. It's like they assume that voters don't have access to Google, or don't care enough to challenge their BS.
6. The McCain campaign recently announced that Palin won't be available for any interviews until further notice, saying that the press will get everything it needs from her prepared speeches and statements. Translation: We don't trust her to maintain an image of competency and capability without the aid of professional speechwriters.
Lastly, can you really say that McCain would have picked her if she wasn't a women? The whole thing seems like an impulsive gimmick to distract people from the rest of McCain's campaign, which has really reverted to lies and smears for the last month or so. "Obama's an elitist who drinks expensive tea!" (even though he and his wife worked their way up to ivy-league education from underprivileged/single parent homes based solely on merit, while I graduated 3rd to last from the Navy Academy, which I got into because of my elite pedigree, own 7 houses, and my wife wore a 300,000 outfit the other day according to Vanity Fair. But I was a POW!) "Obama is a celebrity like Paris Hilton!" (but I've appeared on the tonight show 11 times. But I was a POW!) "Obama is all talk!" (even though his inauguration speech was almost entirely policy proposals, while mine just kind of vaguely mentioned that I'd like to keep the country safe and maybe lower taxes sometime. Did I mention I was a POW?) Woah, rant. Sorry.
To me, this pick is sad, because I actually kind of like her too. But I think that they are plucking her out of the Alaskan soil before she's ready to face national political issues, in an effort to add a spark of enthusiasm to Republican base. It makes me worry that a)the shining star of the Republican Party is going to burn out before her time and b)that this is an ominous sign of how McCain's history of emotional, knee-jerk responses will play out once he's in office.
Okay, rereading this, I went on for a long time... but there are some liberals (if that's what they're calling it these days) who have worries that aren't spawned by Perez Hilton, and those worries need to actually be addressed if McCain has any chance of winning this election. I have concerns about Obama too, but from what I've seen they've run a classier, more focused outfit that actually stayed true to their promise to run a different type of campaign, while Maverick McCain has become so much a part of the establishment that he promises to reform, that he is totally unrecognizable from a year ago. I know which one I'd rather have at the head of my country...
I get freedom of speech, and even though i dont agree with his slant perspectives, it is his blog.
But it sucks because he does reach so many people, and I feel like he should give facts, not personal agendas, on this...but again, it's his blog, so I get it.
Biden uses his son, too, I think. He spoke at his deployment ceremony. I think that as a father, he should sit back and let his son's thing be his son's thing. If it were no big deal for him to speak, then why wont you see just a "Six Pack Joe" up there giving a speech?
just a thought....
love you!
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