Why I can't stand Sarah Palin

OK, so I'm cheating and getting my blog going by posting here the little blurb I'd written on Facebook before the election about why I can't stand Sarah Palin. It still holds true, so in the event that the GOP tries to make her a more integral part of the flailing party (which I do hope will happen given her rapidly declining popularity), I will trot this list back out :) We REALLY dodged a bullet here, America!





First and foremost, Sarah Palin is absolutely unqualified to run this country in the not-so-unlikely event that McCain should croak during his hypothetical presidency. The actuarial tables estimate that, not even counting his past cancer/health issues, he has a 1/6 chance of dying during the term based on his age alone. If elected, he would be the oldest person EVER to begin a first presidential term. And according to non-partisan presidential scholars, Palin is by FAR the most inexperienced person EVER to be on a major party ticket. Not a good combination. If McCain dies as president, it would leave a woman with only a few years' worth of small-town/state experience to be the leader of the free world. She has no foreign policy experience, no congressional experience, has no idea how things work in DC or the world, has no political relationships domestically or internationally, is basically totally unknown to everyone here and abroad, says she doesn't really even know what a VP does, she doesn't "follow the war in Iraq" (except to assert that it is 'god's plan'), etc. This is the main reason that she horrifies me as a VP candidate, and I think that every single American should have this concern, regardless of political affiliation.



If McCain had chosen a qualified VP candidate, such as Lieberman, Romney, Ridge, or going with a woman, someone like Kay Bailey Hutchison or Elizabeth Dole (who is both experienced and extremely well-educated), I wouldn't have a problem with it; though I differ from these people on the issues, I would have to respect their qualifications. Even Karl Rove said that selecting a VP candidate as unqualified as (insert Tim Kaine or Sarah Palin here) would be a purely political ploy to get electoral votes. The reported reason that McCain was not able to choose from the more qualified field of candidates is that they are not hard-core pro-life enough to appeal to the evangelical GOP base and that's why he had to take a risk with Palin. I have a problem with that, which is clearly putting party before country, contrary to what the GOP likes to say.



Aside from my general conviction that she has no business on any presidential ticket in the first place, I have problems with Palin on policy levels, including her:

* unyielding pro-life position, even in the cases of rape/incest

* desire to have creationism/'intelligent design' taught in schools

* evangelical christianity - religion has no place in the government or school (separation of church & state and all that)

* opposion to sex-ed programs in school (how'd THAT work out for Bristol!?)

* opposition to stem-cell research

* refusal to grant same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexuals

* NRA membership, she does not support adequate gun control, and loves hunting, which I abhor

* attemps to remove endangered species (i.e polar bears, beluga whales!) from the protected list, I guess so she can shoot them too.

* desire to destroy the Arctic wildlife refuge for oil (not just offshore, but ANWR, which even McCain is not sold on)

* refusal to acknowledge global warming

* proposal to mandate a national 'loyalty day' to make sure everyone reaffirms their patriotism in this country (minor point, but I think it's stupid)

* utter lack of education; most of my friends and family are better educated than she is, and that's scary. Obama/Biden both are Ivy-League educated and have law degrees to boot. Palin only has a B.S. in Journalism after finally graduating from the U. of Idaho, after bouncing around among six colleges and community college. Her husband (the "first dude", ugh) apparently doesn't even have a college degree - which is fine for the average American, but I think it's inadequate for the people who represent the U.S. to the world and who influence policy (as Todd is said to influence Sarah) to be uneducated or ignorant. By way of contrast, Michelle Obama went to Princeton/Harvard and Jill Biden has a PhD. I think the Palins are more Jerry Springer than 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, which may appeal to the red states of America but not to me.



Beyond policy, I don't have much respect for her on a personal level based on the way she's conducting this campaign, I think she is divisive, nasty, and hypocritical and does little in the way of proposing solid solutions to the problems her own party has created over the last 8 years. But she's probably only saying what Karl Rove tells her, so it may not be her fault. In her defense, I think she is attractive and feisty, and definitely adds a new edge to the image of the GOP. I'm sure her positions appeal to particularly conservative and evangelical men & women, but I hardly think that selling a plane on eBay makes her some kind of political maverick who is going to shake things up in DC.



Don't even get me started on McCain and his platform of 'change' when he has voted with Dubya about 90% of the time. Some change.In a nutshell, that's why I don't like Sarah Palin, since you asked :) But everyone has his/her own opinion, so I'm sure that people who are hard core pro-life, pro-guns, pro-war, pro-prayer, etc. think she is heaven-sent, as is their prerogative. It's that diversity and the free speech to express it that make this country so great, LOL.