Like most people, my first impression of someone comes from some pretty meaningless factors: what other people have said about the person, how the person looks, etc. And so with Sarah Palin, my first reaction was "seems like nice enough of a person, but I can't fathom how she is qualified to on a Presidential ticket."
The latter part, I'm sticking to. Look, it's not "looking down" on someone to say that being the mayor of 6000 people and the governor of 670,000 does not qualify you to be vice president. It's just the truth. No hard feelings. I grew up in Lemoore, CA, population 24,000 (half of that while I lived there), and mayor John Murray is simply not qualified to be vice president (no offense Mr. Murray). I also lived in Fresno, population 430,000, and mayor Alan Autry (yes, that Alan Autry) is likewise unqualified to be vice president. Do they have "executive experience"? Sure. But so did your dad (or mom). It's a matter of magnitude. "Executive experience" is simply a diversion tactic. As Jack Shafer notes, "John F. Kennedy had no executive experience before running for president. Neither, by the way, has John McCain. By this logic, Palin should top the ticket, with McCain as her No. 2." Finally, if you're going to take offense to the fact that some people don't think your "experience" qualifies you to be VP, it would probably not be a good idea to look down on someone else's "experience" as a community organizer. Because that would be elitist. Unless you actually believe what Wonkette only joked: "community organizers help dirty negroes, but mayors of 6,000-population help white people."
As for the first part of my first impression, the whole "seems like a nice person" part, I take that back. With prejudice. After a little digging, she comes across as anything but.
Let's take a brief tour of what I've learned.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.
The Associated Press reported that Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, opposed funding to prevent teen pregnancies, a position that Palin also took as governor. "The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," she wrote in a 2006 questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates.We already knew Sarah Palin is rabidly anti-choice (it's probably what got her on the ticket), but she's also anti-sex education, unless it's abstinence only. And we all know how well "abstinence only" works. To put it mildly, these two positions don't go well together.
- What Would Ted Nugent Do?
Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska and John McCain's vice presidential pick, is an enthusiastic hunter who has proposed legislation and cash incentives to encourage aerial wolf gunning, the controversial practice of shooting wolves from an aircraft.How sportsmanlike.
[Former Wasilla mayor] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving “full support” to the mayor.
- She's a reformer who stands opposed to pork barrel projects and earmarks.
Under her leadership, Alaska has asked the federal government for almost $300 per person in requests for pet projects this year. That's more than any other state received, per person, from Congress and runs counter to the image the GOP ticket is pushing.
- The "Bridge To Nowhere"
In the city Ketchikan, the planned site of the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere," political leaders of both parties said the claim was false and a betrayal of their community, because she had supported the bridge and the earmark for it secured by Alaska's Congressional delegation during her run for governor.
Yeah, about that...
The governor has no command authority overseas or anywhere in the United States other than Alaska, said Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, the service commander of the Alaska National Guard.
- The Glass Ceiling
Finally... I guess we all agree that Palin's kids should be off limits. Obama has explicitly stated this, and he's right. It doesn't matter - leave em alone. But with the indignant, snarky tone of Palin's speech, forgive me for being crass for a moment and notate the rank hypocrisy/irony of the entire Bristol Palin situation w/r/t SP's positions: anti-choice + abstinence only + slashing funds for assitance to teen mothers (sorry for the DFW-isms, I'm a fan).
I honestly and sincerely hope the current situation results in a softening in her positions on those last two variables.
Oh, and yes, conservative Byron York goes there:
If the Obamas had a 17 year-old daughter who was unmarried and pregnant by a tough-talking black kid, my guess is if that they all appeared onstage at a Democratic convention and the delegates were cheering wildly, a number of conservatives might be discussing the issue of dysfunctional black families.I didn't say it. The National Review did.
So yeah, that first impression...
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