We need to realize that 1) at the end of the day Palin doesn’t matter, and 2) there are no silver bullets that will take her out except an Obama victory.

I am incredibly afraid that the following chain of events will occur: 

1.  McCain is elected President

2.  McCain dies unexpectedly or is otherwise put out of commission due to a stroke, heart attack, brain tumor, or sudden discovery of very terminal cancer, full-blown alzheimer’s BEFORE the inauguration.

3.  We end up with Sarah Palin as President, possibly even as President-elect (i.e. inaugurating Palin in January rather than McCain). 

4.  OMG WTF?!!!?!?!11!!1!!!!!!ELEVENTYTHOUSAND!

While I know the above scenario is incredibly unlikely, it is so frightening that I can’t leave it alone. 

This is why Palin is important—if McCain is elected, one medical emergency is all that’s standing between her and the presidency.  Which is especially frightening in this election because McCain does not seem terribly long for this world, and Palin is uniquely unprepared to lead this country.  McCain needs an incredibly skilled and qualified running mate, not the mayor of a town which, in my home state, would not even be considered large enough to merit its own mayor.

“This is why Palin is important—if McCain is elected, one medical emergency is all that’s standing between her and the presidency. “

And that’s why we need to get Obama elected—by focusing on McCain.

when she’s traveling around the country she’s gonna have to speak about his [McCain’s] record and I think it’s only appropriate that they would take some time to brief her up on that. . .

You have got to be sh*tting me!  So she accepted a nomination to be McCain’s running mate with out knowing exactly what he stands for and what his record is?  Up until now has she really been that disinterested in the world outside Alaska that she hasn’t put forth an effort to learn about what issues face the country and, in a presidential election year, what the candidates stand for?  As bad as it is to realize this is, obviously, someone who votes straight party ticket without thinking about it - it’s still shocking to be told that she didn’t bother learning about the candidates in for the primary or, at the very least, put some effort into learning about McCain’s record and stances before accepting his offer.  Seriously, no wonder this country is so effed up

What’s more, McCain is not just unusually old, he is clearly not a well man, and there’s nothing ageist about pointing that out. The guy looks terrible these days. When I think back on every US president in my lifetime, every one of them seemed to age rapidly under the pressures of the office, even Bush Jr. It’s not at all unlikely that the job would kill McCain, which makes Palin an even bigger concern, and we should not be shy about stressing this reality.

You just add Palin as another reason to criticize McCain. This has to do with McCain’s judgment (or the judgment of the genius who put McCain up to do this). Sullivan gets it: this isn’t a Quayle scenario, where you have a guy who isn’t the brightest bulb in the pack but doesn’t have any obvious baggage. Nor is this an Eagleton scenario, where you have a good candidate who has one issue that didn’t come out right away. The problem is that Palin has several boat anchors hanging from her, and she can’t keep from lying about them. It’s obvious that McCain and his team didn’t put much effort into their VP choice, they blew it completely, and they’re compounding the error by trying to ride it out. Experience doesn’t mean shit if experience doesn’t lead you to make better decisions over time. There’s a lot of other reasons not to vote for McCain, but the Palin decision demonstrates why McCain can’t be trusted with the presidency.

no worse than we would be by McCain himself.

I’m actually not buying this.  Palin’s particular mixture of political views, experience level, and obvious unfitness to hold national-level elected office make her far more of a liability than McCain and Bush are.  This isn’t someone who has to toe the line with the base to seem like an evangelical Christian or seem like they care about social conservative wedge issues.  This isn’t someone who is just a hawk, or whose main M.O. is to get their cronies’ fingers in as many sweet governmental pies as possible, welfare of the nation be damned.  This isn’t someone with multiple degrees from Ivy League universities putting on a Just Folks accent.

She’s the real deal.  Which is potentially a lot scarier, because not only are her views something out of dystopian horror (or better yet, a very real horror like Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Afghanistan), she proudly has no idea how our government works.  Oh, and unlike Bush/Cheney, her vice president would be appointed, not elected, so she’d either just steer the country right into the mud on her own or she’d end up the puppet of god knows what kind of despot.

Again, the best way to avoid her being anything more than the answer to a question on <i>Jeopardy!<i> for the next thirty years is to focus on McCain, tie his ass to Bush, and defeat him. Ignore Palin.

I’m not worried about her in 2012 FWIW. I don’t see her getting past Jindal in the primaries.

If Sarah Palin ever becomes president, I expect that among her first official acts will be tracking down the “weird kid” from her high school, planting drugs in his house, and getting him thrown in jail.  She likes to make people’s lives miserable, you can tell.

And if Gov. Palin were a liberal Democrat, there would be MASSIVE questions about her qualifications raised by conservatives.

Bismarck, my problem with Palin IS her executive experience.

What does that experience tell us?

She either disregards, hates, or is completely ignorant of original intent when it comes to executive privilege - i.e. loyalty tests, illegal firings, etc.
She sees no conflict between imposing her privately held religious beliefs on others using her public office.
She won’t let little things like, say, LAWS and CONSTITUTIONS and all of that get in her way.
She is vindictive and paranoid and surrounds herself with people who likely won’t tell her anything she doesn’t want to hear (sound familiar, Brownie?)

In other words, her experience tells us that she is not fit for office - especially POTUS, which requires a fundemental understanding of constitutional restraint of powers.  She was the demagogic executive out of control that our founders were concerned about!

Umm Bismarck, the point of the post is that the McCain campaign doesn’t seem to think she’s ready. I really don’t concern myself with the readiness thing that much, because I think she is much too conservative for me (believes abortion is only ok to save the mother’s life, thinks creationism should be taught in schools alongside evolution, doesn’t believe in global warming, pushes abstinence only sex education, ...), she seems to lie (about the bridge to nowhere, earmarks in general, about the reason the state sued the federal government for listing the polar bear as threatened), and she seems to be a bit of a control freak (for example she said that no town employee was to talk to the press without her permission).
And I think that it’s obvious that McCain spent almost no time looking at her before choosing her, says quite a bit about how he will run the country.

Bismarck, ignoring the rule of law when performing one’s executive duties isn’t a “policy preference” - it is a criminal act bordering on treason.

His position on abortion is more extreme than that of NARAL.

Quick question, Biz: do you think it’s the business of any legislature to waste its time passing laws against things that are already illegal?

Let’s face it, if Governor Palin were liberal, pro-abortion Democrat, there would be no questions about her qualifications raised by the feminists.

Um, you do realize that Gov. Palin’s advocacy of forced abortions [can you get any more “pro-abortion” than that?] is one of the main reasons feminists have questions about her?

Which allegation would that be?  The townie firings that generated lawsuits?  The harassment of one of Alaska’s top librarians and attempts to fire her?  Firing somebody because they believed in the rule of law?

Tell me - which of these instances of overstepping authority shall we start with?  Too many allegations for my taste - I believe the founders feared such people as Palin.  That’s why they put their fears in ink on paper.

I just checked the Palin rumors clearinghouse for that charge.  It’s not there.  Can you elucidate?

Rumor? Charge? I’m not clear where you’re going with this. Are you saying Gov. Palin does not hold the policy position that the Government gets to decide what happens to a pregnancy? Because, according to her campaign for gov. spokesman (Smith), she does:

Smith said Palin is opposed to abortion…. “She doesn’t make exception for rape and incest, only for health of the mother,” he said.

BTW Bismarck, there wasn’t any prosecution for leaving infants to die for the same reason Palin’s ex BIL wasn’t canned: all the allegations stemmed from a single source which wasn’t exactly objective and had a clear agenda to promote.

There are already laws against infanticide.  First, however, that “infant” must be a viable human being.  There are also laws that leave the question of medical treatment of a doomed child to the will of the parents. Are you willing to foot the bill for extreme and futile end-of-life measures out of your own pocket?

Why was there no prosecution for leaving infants who survived abortions left to die in the utility room at Christ Hospital in Chicago?

Because Jill Stanek is a serial fantasist who made it all up.  She’s pretty much of a piece with the nurses for Terri Schiavo who swore that they had long conversations with her during their shifts. 

You can’t prosecute people for something that never happened, and it’s ridiculous to pass laws based on the unproven claims of one delusional woman.

The McCain campaign is smart to avoid the press as long as possible, since the MSM has shown its willingness to run with any wild-eyed rumor the KOS kids come up with. A press conference would end up looking like a zoo with inaccurate and stupid questions about her daughter’s pregnancy and “Troopergate” (let’s call it “Taser your son gate,” instead).

1. She opposes unnecessary abortion—most Americans believe there are way too many abortions for way too many dubious reasons. None of you have ever heard of an abortion you disagree with, so, of course, you will despise anyone who thinks pregnancy isn’t the end of the world and that, no, we shouldn’t have government endorsing the practice. I’ve seen on this site more than one person question her fitness for office because she didn’t abort her Downs Syndrome baby.  As I’ve said before, I wish these sorts of people got more airtime for their views because it would be way more helpful to the pro-life position.

2. Troopergate—Yes, she fired the guy. He has stated publicly that she didn’t pressure him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. But I’m not sure I want a guy as a trooper who tasers his son so he’ll know what it’s like, drives drunk in his state-issued car, and threatens to kill his wife, her sister, and their father. I would say any one of those activities disqualifies him for the job.

3. “Persecute gay people”—yeah, complying with the law is persecution. She disagrees with gay marriage, but so do about half the people in the U.S. Oh, the persecution!

4. Taxes—The rhetoric is the same ol’ redistributionist shit. Take from the people who make it, give it to the people who don’t. And don’t dare think the rate is too high because they don’t “need” it. Sorry, but raising taxes in an iffy economy is economic suicide. Not to mention that the rich don’t like high taxes anymore than anyone else. So, you raise their taxes, they either ship it overseas or stop buying stuff, which is more likely to hurt that poor guy at the end of the line than help him. Remember Clinton’s luxury yacht tax? The only people hurt by that were the yacht builders, and I guarantee they weren’t rich.

5. “Teach creationsim”—Like a lot of people, Sarah Palin hasn’t said she wants creationism taught in school. She would like Intelligent Design taught or, at the least, questions regarding Darwinism brought up. This is a red herring of the Left, designed to scare people into thinking she’s some tool of the Dominionists!!!!1!!! In reality, most people like the idea of evolution being questioned in the classroom and children allowed to hear other explanations. And considering that we’re talking about approximately 3 days out of a 180-day school year, it’s not really hard to accommodate the will of the people. Unless you don’t like the will of the people.

6. “Perpetuate racism”—Given that your candidate constantly injects race into the campaign, I would say Barack Obama is the one perpetuating racism. Unless you are going to argue about “code words” and “dog whistle” nonsense again, which makes sane people roll their eyes.

7. “Bad foreign policy”—Because negotiating with terrorists and thugs really works well. And given all the backtracking Barack Obama has to do on foreign policy, I’d say he’s the one with the foreign policy problem.

So, now, your arguments boil down to “she’s not qualified because she’s not allowing herself to be lynched by the press.” And, yes, I used the word “lynched” because that’s exactly what would happen. Sorta like Clarence Thomas’s “high tech lynching” by a committee run by Joe Biden.

None of you are interested in Sarah Palin’s qualifications. You wouldn’t vote for her even if she were the most qualified candidate in the race by every possible objective standard out there (she’s already more qualified than the other 3 as far as executive experience is concerned), so why don’t you just cut the B.S. and admit that? You keep trying to sound rational about your objections, but they really boil down to this:

1. She doesn’t believe in abortion till after birth (cuz Obama believes it’s ok to kill the baby after the birth if the baby wasn’t killed in the process)

2. She doesn’t embrace every “gay right” claimed by that movement.

3. She’s not a Democrat.

1. She opposes unnecessary abortion—most Americans believe there are way too many abortions for way too many dubious reasons.

Yes, because as we all know, the standard for proper medical care is the belief of perfect strangers and the ranking system they assign to your medical needs in perfect ignorance of your medical history.

In any case, the relevant point is that her position, as a candidate for public office, is that the Government gets to decide what happens to a pregnancy—forced abortion, forced gestation, forced sterilization, etc.

None of you have ever heard of an abortion you disagree with, so, of course, you will despise anyone who thinks pregnancy isn’t the end of the world and that, no, we shouldn’t have government endorsing the practice.<i>

<i>I’ve seen on this site more than one person question her fitness for office because she didn’t abort her Downs Syndrome baby.

Have you, really? In any case, one of the reasons Gov. Palin’s fitness for office is in question is because she advocates one standard for her, and her family (pregnancy decisions are a personal matter) and a different one for the masses (the Government gets to decide what happens to your pregnancy).

5. “Teach creationsim”—Like a lot of people, Sarah Palin hasn’t said she wants creationism taught in school. She would like Intelligent Design taught or, at the least, questions regarding Darwinism brought up. This is a red herring of the Left, designed to scare people into thinking she’s some tool of the Dominionists!!!!1!!!<i>

<i>In reality, most people like the idea of evolution being questioned in the classroom and children allowed to hear other explanations. And considering that we’re talking about approximately 3 days out of a 180-day school year, it’s not really hard to accommodate the will of the people. Unless you don’t like the will of the people.

Once again you’re commenting on something—the teaching of science—with which you seem to be unfamiliar. Also, as much as I’m sure some of the readers here sympathize with your Communist tendencies, since is based on reality, facts, and experiments, not “the will of the people” (or, for that matter, voting, or opinion polls).

Must.Close.Tags.

http://icons-pe.wunderground.com/data/images/at200808.gif

I oppose unnecessary interference in my decisions about my health and the necessity of any given treatment.

By Palin’s own logic about how the government should intrude in private medical decisions, a case could be made for her own forced sterilization.  Or for forcing her to abort her much wanted and well-loved son.  Pro choice thinking is consistent that the government should stay out of all these situations.

5. “Teach creationsim”—Like a lot of people, Sarah Palin hasn’t said she wants creationism taught in school. She would like Intelligent Design taught or, at the least, questions regarding Darwinism brought up.

That isn’t science.  That is teaching religion.  Darwin’s theories are subject to a lot of questions in science - SCIENTIFIC questions.  Religious dogma has no place in public schools.  Period.

7. “Bad foreign policy”—Because negotiating with terrorists and thugs really works well.

Like overthowing a democratically elected president Allende in favor of Pinochet?  Like all these lovely pictures of Rummy and Sadam?  Bleat on Sharon - the rethugs have the WORST record of sending in Rummy, Kissinger, etc. to make real nice with bad guys and EVEN INSTALL THEM THROUGH ILLEGAL MEANS!

Clue.  Please.
None of you are interested in Sarah Palin’s qualifications.

As I said above, I’d be much more interested if the primary ones were not “Fundamentalist on a power trip” and “proven record of trammeling any and all limits on her executive power”.

Oops, something didn’t copy properly there - sorry for the weather map!

What I meant to quote: 1. She opposes unnecessary abortion—most Americans believe there are way too many abortions for way too many dubious reasons.

Well, golly Gee sharon, I think there are too many prostate procedures, not to mention too much blood pressure medication, etc.  Do you really want the government telling you how to run your body and life?  Really?  Remember that the heyday of abortion illegality was also the heyday of forced sterilization and institutionalization of people with retardation.  If you don’t understand how these go hand-in-hand, see also Nazi Germany and Romania.

his policies strike me as Marxist

Barack Obama’s policies are more conservative than the Republican Party’s platform from the New Deal to the Reagan Revolution.  Back when taxing people who have money, giving people opportunities to succeed, and maintaining infrastructure were considered the hallmarks of good governance.  By your definition, the Republican Party was Marxist up until less than three decades ago.  Go away, moron.

Bismarck, ignoring the rule of law when performing one’s executive duties isn’t a “policy preference” - it is a criminal act bordering on treason.

or a sign you’re part of the Bush Administration

There are already laws against infanticide.  First, however, that “infant” must be a viable human being.  There are also laws that leave the question of medical treatment of a doomed child to the will of the parents. Are you willing to foot the bill for extreme and futile end-of-life measures out of your own pocket?

Technically, in terms of having been delivered and supporting its own life functions would render the infant a degree of viability (viable is pretty much defined as being able to support your first breath after you’ve been born).  While infanticide is illegal, unethical and immoral, the act of not rendering invasive medical treatment in an attempt to prolong “life” is not in and of itself infanticide.  In some cases, use of invasive medical treatment may even actually be battery.  In other words, if Bismark is claiming that anyone who doesn’t continue to do everything possible to keep a child alive (until they die despite the artificial life support) is actually infanticide then any parent who chooses to discontinue (or refuse) life support for their child is a murderer. 

In the alleged cases of children born alive post (ostensibly, late-term) abortion, whether or not it would have been medically appropriate and ethical to render treatment would have depended on the potential to treat (meaning reverse some of the underlying medical conditions) in a way with a legitimate belief that the infant could have a clinically significant improvement with said treatment.  Otherwise, treatment should have been limited to palliative care.  There is a very big difference between prolonging life and prolonging the act of dying.  It’s a pity too many people willfully refuse to even try to understand that.

While infanticide is illegal, unethical and immoral, the act of not rendering invasive medical treatment in an attempt to prolong “life” is not in and of itself infanticide.

For rational people, yes.  For nutjobs like Jill Stanek and Sharon, not taking expensive heroic measures to painfully extend the life of a doomed infant by a couple of weeks or months is exactly the same as killing it outright.

Oh, and have I mentioned that people like Jill Stanek and Sharon want parents to be legally compelled to have those heroic measures taken but oppose any kind of universal healthcare?  So they think that people who are unlucky enough to have an infant with fatal birth defects should also be forced to go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt to try and extend that child’s life by a few weeks before the inevitable end comes.

Bismarck, the dilation and extraction procedure was developed to save the life and health of the mother.  It is far faster and easier than legally requiring a woman to undergo a full labor or undergo surgical removal via the abdomen.

If a woman is already bleeding to death or experiencing catastrophic clotting (like the syndrome that killed my own mother), surgery is a death sentence.  Full labor won’t happen in any time frame necessary to preserve the mother’s life.

But hey, don’t let medical reality or the viability of the mother get in the way of SAVING BAYYYBEEES.  Even completely doomed pre-term fetuses.  Might as well kill the woman too - she had sex!

Unfortunately atttacks on Palin are just going to come back on Democrats in this political climate. Attacking Palin is not productive. Just look at the polls out today.