Governor Sarah Palin--A Naïve and Controversial Choice

This is a point-by-point rebuttal to claims that Sarah Palin was a great pick for McCain.

• She will appeal to female voters, particularly the ones who are upset that Obama beat Clinton.

She will appeal to clueless female voters who are willing to abandon their values and ideals (like a pro-choice position) to vote for any candidate with the same reproductive organs they have. True, most female Clinton supporters that wanted to see a woman on the ticket still do want to see a woman on a major ticket... but only if that woman is Hillary Clinton. Most intelligent female voters will see McCain's pick for what it is: pandering to clueless female voters. Agree with them or disagree with them, but we have to admit that the Democrats will be stronger on "bread and butter" issues: economic growth, jobs, etc. Republicans need to step up their game if they hope to compete in the fall.

• She is youthful and attractive.

You got me on that one, but that means Republicans can't ridicule Democrats who are only voting for Barack Obama because he is youthful and attractive, or eloquent and inspiring.

• Picking her demonstrates McCain's "maverick" leadership style.

Picking her demonstrates McCain's problem with conservatives, women, working class families, and those who crave a Washington outsider. If by "maverick," we mean that McCain does not care about attracting voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, or Florida, perhaps he lives up to the reputation with this decision.

• Her level of experience will not be an issue.

Oh, it will be a HUGE issue. She served on an obscure Alaskan city council and then as a mayor of an obscure Alaskan city. She became a governor in December 2006. "She beat the powerful incumbent Republican governor during the primary," but so did somebody else. "She's popular as a governmental figure," yeah, in Alaska, with its 3 already-McCain-leaning electoral votes. If Republicans say that Obama's experience as a city organizer and member of the Illinois state legislature is meaningless, almost all of Sarah Palin's experience up until the last year or two has been meaningless, as well. Imagine when Joe Biden and Sarah Palin finally get on TV to debate and the issue of foreign policy comes up... At least Alaska will give us a prime location to bomb the hell out of Russia, right? Oh, and to drill, drill, drill.

John McCain said he was going to pick somebody who, a heartbeat away from the presidency, would be ready to lead on day one if something were to happen to McCain (and at age 72 today, it's not hard to imagine that occurring). I hope the Obama campaign uses these words against McCain, which would only strengthen his choice in Joe Biden.

• This will attract conservatives.

Yes, but she will turn off moderates and independents who were hopeful for McCain Republicanism. I don't know if the pro-Romney or pro-Huckabee (or pro-Guiliani) voters will appreciate the Palin pick as much as McCain hopes, but certainly the pro-McCain Republicans will find many faults with this decision, and perhaps many will stay home or even deflect to Obama.

The truth is that her campaign is not too historic, except that she will be the only woman to lose the vice presidency since Geraldine Ferraro did it back in 1984.

What what about the controversy? Well, there's a rift on Townhall.com, for what it's worth:

"If she's the pick, the press frenzy will be huge ---- HUGE --- but McCain will largely lose the experience issue against Obama. By any standard, Governor Palin is less prepared as commander in chief than Obama." -- Michael Medved

"When the Dems come after Palin for inexperience in foreign affairs, the reply will be obvious --the GOP vice-presidential nominee is as experienced as the Democratic presidential nominee but also has executive decision-making that Obama lacks." -- Hugh Hewitt

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What conservatives have said about McCain...

Since McCain has used both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in ads against the phenom Barack Obama, here's a small collection of videos featuring notable conservatives badmouthing Senator John McCain--the same "maverick" who prided himself on being a "maverick" months and years ago when these criticisms were made. I will not insert commentary; the videos speak for themselves.

Hugh Hewitt:



Rush Limbaugh:



Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter:



Joe Scarborough:



Tom DeLay:



Laura Ingraham:



James Dobson:



Mitt Romney:







Karl Rove:

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Racial Injustice and Other Inconsistencies

• It's a policy that distinguishes between races and selects for the minorities.

• It makes assumptions about a person's life, upbringing, and background based on physical appearances.

• It's rooted in stereotypes.

• According to this doctrine, certain attributes are inherent in being of a given ethnicity.

• Its proponents hold that it "helps American society as a whole" by solving problems, even though its foundations are unjust and based on racism.

• The policy exists in both the private and the public sectors.

• It is based on convenience: Because performing in-depth research is difficult and expensive, making decisions based on race becomes simple and cheap.

• It fits the definition of "prejudice" perfectly because the act judges other people based on first impressions.

___________________



If you're a conservative, chances are you assumed I was talking about "affirmative action."
If you're a liberal, chances are you assumed I was talking about "racial profiling."

In many ways, both systems are unfair both to those they target and to those they neglect to target.

Under affirmative action, individual members of minority groups have an advantage because minorities as a whole are underrepresented at schools and in certain industries. Those minorities who actually have talents and skills are often viewed by their white peers as the beneficiaries of affirmative action policies, even though they may have been highly qualified without any extra bonus. Equally qualified whites are at a disadvantage. Although some feel that it rectifies an American historical trend that barred minorities from achieving real success, many feel that it is simply "reverse racism." In some instances, affirmative action appears to be on the rise in private school admissions; yet many public school admissions statistics reveal that the schools are actively recruiting minorities less than in years past.

And what about "racial profiling," with which Dennis Prager and Ann Coulter (among the most vehement opponents of affirmative action) have no problem? It targets certain minorities (people of Middle Eastern descent in airports, and African-Americans and Hispanic people in car searches and other police procedures), while assuming based on skin color that a person is more of a suspect for a given crime. Shouldn't security in airports be on the look-out for all terrorists, Mohammed Attas as well as Timothy McVeighs? In a world where the vast majority of our terrorist enemies seem to be of Arabic descent, causing us to target Arabs, terrorists with unconventional skin colors are bound to emerge. We must be vigilant in suspecting all equally, even if that means raising the security for all travelers.

Although I consider myself a "progressive," I do not consider myself a hypocrite on most issues. Therefore, I do not support affirmative action or racial profiling.





And a few other inconsistencies:

Conservatives believe in an "inalienable right to life" as God grants us (via our Judeo-Christian Founding Fathers' Declaration of Independence), yet when a person is found guilty, that murderer's right suddenly becomes alienable. I'm not saying the death penalty isn't justifiable under the "Old Testament," but it's not justifiable if somebody believes that the right is and should be "inalienable."

Conservatives cannot understand why Obama criticizes McCain's success (see the '7 homes' ad), but McCain is not wrong to criticize Obama's success (see the 'Paris & Britney' ad).

Conservatives believe abortion is murder. Does the fact that the mother became pregnant due to rape make an abortion any less a "murder" of an innocent human being? Giving the option of an abortion to a rape victim sounds an awful lot like two wrongs making a right, no? John McCain rejects abortion ("infanticide") except in the case of rape or incest, so go figure.


Again, I'm trying to attain a Prageresque notion of "moral clarity."
I welcome inconsistencies of liberal thought (like the pro-"affirmative action" stance but not pro-"racial profiling" stance I mentioned earlier) in the comment field.

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Campaign 2008: By the Numbers

During the TV ads and stump stops, there seems to be one focus of both presidential campaigns.
Is it the economy? No.
Is it Iraq? No.
Is it "change"? No.
It's Barack Obama.

In a presidential election with no incumbents running, voters must turn to the candidates, whom many know well (McCain) or whom many have yet to meet (Obama).

Both parties had major problems during the primaries. The Democrats had a heated battle between Obama and Clinton, which will be definitively closed when the Clintons speak during this week's convention (or so the Dems hope). The Republicans elected McCain, who has been painted as too liberal for conservative tastes (even he admits it!).

Tonight, CNN's John King pointed out the trend to focus the Republican campaign on Barack Obama. He said that given "the fundamentals" (which includes the state of the economy and Pres. Bush's low approval ratings), the only way Republicans can hope to win is to "disqualify" Barack Obama: He's unpatriotic, he's an elitist, he doesn't share your values, etc. I would add, "He's a crypto-Muslim," as a concern of many conservatives, but that wasn't mentioned on CNN.

Does my assertion that Barack Obama is the focus of both sides of the political spectrum have any merit? Well, let's check the numbers.
(All searches performed at 1 AM on August 26, 2008. I'm a night owl.)

Number of results for "McCain" on the conservative Townhall.com search of columns: 782
Number for "Obama": 1,165
Number of results for "McCain" on Townhall.com search of everything (audio/video, blogs, columns, etc.): 8,825
Number for "Bush": 9,208
Number for "Obama": 16,774

Number of results for "McCain" on the liberal DailyKos.com search of stories from last 5 years: 2,990
Number for "Obama": 3,770

Number of results for "economy" on JohnMcCain.com: 255
Number for "security": 249
Number for "Iraq": 227
Number for "energy": 176
Number for "POW": 39
Number for "country" (as in, "Country first"): 423
Number for "Obama": 453

Did I prove that Obama was the focus of both sides of this battle? Well, maybe not, but he's certainly discussed much more by bloggers, conservative and liberal alike, and he's certainly a big talking point of Senator McCain. But let's keep pretending that only the "mainstream liberal media" is nonsensically obsessed with Senator Obama, with "The One."


In my view, Sen. Barack Obama has had enough time being the focus of both campaigns. Now the focus must shift to President Bush.

And on a side note,
Does anybody really think that the option of voting "for Obama" and "not for Obama" (rather than "for McCain") is healthy for America? John McCain seems to believe that's how a person wins, by trying to ruin Obama's reputation and keep Obama on the defensive. We'll just have to see how well that strategy works come November.

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Prager on Shooting Taggers

Well, the eminent Judeo-Christian moralizer Dennis Prager has shocked me again. Today he responded to those who criticize his opinion that taggers should be shot on sight (wounded, yes, but God forbid they should be killed).

So now it's a far-left position to be against shooting taggers? Let's see if this column alienates any Townhall.com readers with his ignorant assumption that his view is the standard conservative one. ("But if he shot them in the legs or in the arms I would have considered the man one of the great advancers of civilization in my time. And that is what divides left from right.")

The reason people on "the left" (more accurately, most people) oppose such drastic ways of dealing with taggers is not because they condone taggers' behavior, but because those crimes do not warrant gunfire. And to think this guy has taught at the American Jewish University...

Unless there is a significant response to this post asking me to do so, I won't respond point by point to Prager's outrageously far-far-far-far-far-right column and its absurdly anti-Judeo-Christian sentiment. For now I will assume the absurdity is inherent in his verbal lunacy. The bulk of my argument would go something like this: Most agree that graffiti is a major problem, and vandals are often engaging in gang violence, but where he loses people (and me) is how this leads logically to the conclusion that it's fine to shoot them in the leg or in the arm. Or how this violence follows logically from Judeo-Christian morality.

Dennis Prager: Champion of Moral Clarity...




Another interesting Prager column:
On John McCain

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Ignorance: A "Judeo-Christian" Value?

"Ignorance" -- 1. The condition of being ignorant; the want of knowledge in general, or in relation to a particular subject; the state of being uneducated or uninformed.

Ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. --Shakespeare

2. (Theol.) A willful neglect or refusal to acquire knowledge which one may acquire and it is his duty to have. --Book of Common Prayer.

"ignorance." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. 25 Aug. 2008. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ignorance>.

The results of this poll on the front page of Townhall.com came about 2 minutes before she walked on stage at the convention.

The readers of Townhall and the writers who think they're appealing to an educated audience (or at least vastly more educated than liberal readers of sites like The Huffington Post, right?) ought to feel ashamed at the unabashed ignorance.

Disgraceful.

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Obama-Biden, McCain-Romney, and the Perils of Debate Footage

Warning: This post does not reference Jewish texts or religious authorities in any way. It's merely a political discussion, not a religious one. Those who are offended by lashon hara as it relates to elections should not indulge in the following post.


Shortly after Baruch Tov Obama announced on his website this Shabbos that Delaware Senator Joe Biden would be his vice presidential running mate, the McCain campaign released an ad attacking Obama as inexperienced, using Joe Biden's own words from a primary debate:


Yeah, Biden did sit next to Senator Clinton during the post-Iowa Senate meetings that were televised. Yeah, he did criticize Obama's inexperience on more than one occasion. Yes, he has been consistent in his delivery of fantastic gaffes.

But Biden does bring much to the ticket: Foreign policy experience, the perspective of a Washington insider, an appeal to Catholic and working class voters, and a charming and personable way of handling himself in uncomfortable political situations (as demonstrated in the following video).



But is the inconsistency in his perception of Barack Obama something that should worry liberal voters? Hardly, especially if McCain chooses former Massachusetts governor and current businessman Mitt Romney.

Clearly, Barack Obama has demonstrated that he has the judgment, if not the experience, to lead on matters of foreign policy. He bothered to read the briefings on Iraq and came to the conclusion that Bush should not receive the "okay" to use military force there. I would assert that Barack Obama's skillful handling of his honorable campaign has better prepared him for the presidency. But for his VP pick, Joe Biden has the experience, and he has admitted that his decision to give Bush the authority to deploy troops in Iraq was a bad call.

But let's get back to Mitt.

Fortunately for the Democrats, Mitt Romney will (if pundits are correct that he'll be chosen as the VP) be a great choice. Why do I think so? Well, Romney's political philosophy can be accurately described as "liberal conservatism." If that sounds like an oxymoron, that's because it is.

For example, here Romney is speaking on behalf of McCain and his "We are all Georgians" message:


And yet here he is debating against the notable Democrat Ted Kennedy when he ran for the U.S. Senate:

(Interesting to note: Log Cabin Republicans actually used this debate as a positive and true portrayal of Mitt Romney when they made their pro-Romney ad.)

Good for conservatives and for liberals? Everybody loves Mitt!
Well, that simply mean's he's good for Democrats. If McCain wants to play dirty with his attack on Biden's disapproval of Obama, you better believe the Democrats are going to play dirty with Romney's disapproval of McCain, like in this ad:










Studies have revealed that the VP selection has never really made a significant difference in the preference of voters. Nonetheless, if Mitt Romney can show that he is so liberal on social issues when he's under pressure during a debate against a well-known Democratic senator, just imagine how he'll fare when he's up against Joe Biden.







And just for kicks,

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