WHY BOTHER WITH SARAH?

Perhaps mush out of “the mind” of an advertising marven, or perhaps an original thought from the Republican Party vice presidential candidate. Who can tell? The New York Times reports, via Salom.com that Sarah Palin observed:

“This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America. We see America as the greatest force for good in this world….Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

. . . Palin was referring to a New York Times article from Friday, which examined Obama’s connection to Bill Ayers, a founding member of the 1960’s group the Weathermen.

Palin is the ultimate puppet. Lies do not matter to her. She seems to be without compassion. As for intelligence and knowledge – who knows? She is so bizarrely unqualified on any grounds I can think of, as to make her irrelevant.

She is not the joke. McCain is the joke. The odds of McCain-Palin winning the presidential election are less than 50%, but what a disaster it would be if they were successful. The past eight years of madness will seem like a period of comparative sanity.

Meantime, we have a Palin pun. Best to forget about her. “The horror”:

She is ready willing and able. Sure.

Still it is interesting to observe that McCain’s campaign has not imploded or fallen over yet. We await with bated breathe the big surprise, not to stack the ballot boxes, but the concerted effort to legitimize some groups of registered voters.

It makes me wonder how people I would respect, even if we disagreed politically on every question – which is not to say that I would be necessarily correct – can in good conscience vote for this ticket. I can understand how poor, benighted, ignorant people can put their faith in a snake oil salesmen, but that excuse applies only to a limited number of people

Postscript:

I suppose these comment about Palin can be seen as sexist. I am not opposed on principle or by inclination to female candidates for political office. There are many wiser and better qualified people than Sarah Palin.

As far as I know, the record of the association between Obama and Bill Ayers is accurately recorded by Scott Shane in The New York Times.

The issue here touches on the issue of restorative justice versus retributive justice, in which a person cannot make amends for doing something wrong. I suppose that position is a very violent attitude toward people.Sometimes people are driven by half-baked ideas, or far worst deliberately conceived ideas that dehumanized the victims of violence. We might attribute such a mental frame to pilots of planes on repeated bombing missions who incidentally murder innocent civilians. Justice, forgiveness and reconciliation are not trivial matters.

The democratic process must be about getting to, and holding onto, the truth. The wise it is true know many times, but they do not experience whether the foot of the less enlightened meet the shoe, unless as remarkably it seems possible, they have insight and compassion for those people. The notion that stupid people be made leaders is beneath contempt. Ought not then the American people be able to say,” Alright Palin, you say you are up to this position, then prove it”.

ELSEWHERE:

Brad DeLong is more emphatic.

Joe Conason, at Salon.com poses the question: “Why aren’t more conservatives disgusted that their party nominated a person devoid of qualifications for the vice presidency (again)?” Ok, I know, it is because according to the story it is the “so-called liberals” who are the elitists, and the conservatives who are the populists. American political alignments on this reading start to get bizarre The conclusion, I am guessing will prove right:

The ultimate irony of Palin’s rise is that it has occurred at a moment when Americans may finally have grown weary of pseudo-populism — when intelligence, judgment, diligence and seriousness are once again valued, simply because we are in such deep trouble. We got into this mess because we elected a man who professed to despise elitism, which he detected in everyone whose opinions differed from his prejudices. That was George W. Bush, of course. Biden was too polite and restrained to say it, but the dumbing down is more of the same, too.