{"id":568,"date":"2009-11-22T23:09:59","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T03:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/?p=568"},"modified":"2009-11-22T23:09:59","modified_gmt":"2009-11-23T03:09:59","slug":"sarah-palin-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/?p=568","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Palin revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Sarah Palin was selected by John McCain as his running mate, I was intrigued by the choice. On a personal level, I felt that her decision to give birth to a baby with full knowledge that he had Down’s Syndrome, was an act of grace and courage – and I admired her for it. I still do so. But I became quickly disillusioned as to her preparedness to be president if the circumstances ever warranted it.<\/p>\n

As I watched the Sarah Palin appearance on Oprah and other shows it felt, as Yogi Berra would say, “like deja vu all over again”! On the one hand, I am able to understand her appeal to a sizable minority in the US. There is something refreshingly candid and genuine about her – unlike the typical politician’s scripted responses. Having said this, there was little about her responses on the various shows to persuade me that she has grown in the months subsequent to the presidential election and has the knowledge and understanding of complex issues to be president.<\/p>\n

In fact, what came across was her tendency to resort to platitudes in her responses to complex issues. It is a source of puzzlement to me that according to a recent Washington Post\/ABC poll<\/a>, 46% of Americans would either definitely support her or would consider voting for Palin to be president. Also 43% have a favorable opinion of her. It is stunning to me after the presidency of George W, who even his supporters would acknowledge lacked intellectual curiosity and depth, would be willing to entrust the country to someone who makes Bush look like an intellectual giant.<\/p>\n

I was an admirer of John McCain who I felt was a genuine American hero and a patriot and was someone who did not hold on to positions based purely on ideology. I felt that I could vote for him for president but all of that went up in smoke when he selected Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee. In the first major decision that he made as a presidential candidate he selected a person who he must have known was utterly unqualified to be president – and the fact that McCain was over 70 years old made the selection all the more inexplicable. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Can one imagine Palin in negotiations with Putin or having to make strategic decisions regarding Afghanistan? It was clear to me that McCain – a man who has always put country first – decided that Palin’s selection was the most expedient course to placate the right wing of the Republican party no matter how ruinous it might be for the country in the event she had to assume the presidency. In that respect, McCain reminded me of Colin Powell who sold his soul to support Bush when it came to the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses when the honorable thing would have been for him to resign as a matter of principle. McCain and Powell, two honorable men whose patriotism and love of country was never in doubt, both allowed themselves to be compromised and in so doing sullied their, until then, unblemished reputations.<\/p>\n

Listening to Sarah Palin responding to substantive questions, I was reminded of the movie “Being there” with Peter Sellers who acted the part of a gardener whose entire knowledge and “education” was from watching mundane and vapid television shows. As a result of circumstances and a misunderstanding as to his identity, he becomes an “unofficial advisor” to the president and his advice always consists of platitudes and mundane responses, sometimes straight out of commercials that he saw on TV – yet they come to be viewed as being very profound! Sarah Palin’s responses to some questions reminded me of Peter Seller’s character in the movie. When asked about whether the US should partner with Karzai given that he was viewed as being corrupt, Palin’s response is that the US should do so, since no leader is perfect!<\/p>\n

I have always viewed the election of George W Bush as an aberration – a case where the American electorate lost its bearings. If Sarah Palin ever runs for president and wins, I’d find it difficult to rationalize it as yet another aberration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Sarah Palin was selected by John McCain as his running mate, I was intrigued by the choice. On a personal level, I felt that her decision to give birth to a baby with full knowledge that he had Down’s Syndrome, was an act of grace and courage – and I admired her for it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}