The Palin Candidacy Farce

UPDATED: in addition to the New York Times story discussed below which demonstrates the idiocy of McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, Andrew Sullivan has a column uin the Times of London that rips both McCain and the GOP. I cannot say it any better than Andrew has enunciated as to why Palin's selection is an abomination. Here are highlights from Andrew's column:

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Formerly sane people have written of the McCain campaign’s selection of this running mate as if it represents a new face for Republicanism, . . . I’m afraid I cannot join in. In fact I cannot say anything about this candidacy that takes it in any way seriously. It is a farce. It is absurd. It is an insult to all intelligent people. It is a sign of a candidate who has lost his mind. There is no way to take the nomination of Palin to be vice-president of the world’s sole superpower - except to treat it as a massive, unforgivable, inexplicable decision by someone who has either gone insane or is managerially unfit to be president of the United States. When, at some point, the hysteria dies down, even her supporters will realise that, by this decision, McCain has rendered himself unfit to run a branch of Starbucks, let alone the White House.

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She is the biggest joke to be put on a ticket in national politics. The most accurate thing said about her in the past two weeks was said on the day she was picked. It was said by Alaska’s Republican state senate president, Lyda Green: “She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice-president or president? Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?”

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Today's New York Times has a brutal story on Sarah Palin's tenure as Governor of Alaska. It makes it clear that Palin - like all too many Christianists I have encountered in the political realm - has been mean spirited and vindictive once in office and not one to actually practice the true Gospel message. Oh yes, there's a lot of lip service about being pro-life, supporting family values, and opposing the "gay agenda," but when and where it counts, the behavior is amateurish, craven and nasty. Palin comes across as even more peevish than Emperor Cheney and as totally unconcerned about the competence of appointees to an extent that she makes the Chimperator look competent. Secrecy and furthering personal vendettas through political power are NOT what one wants in a vice president and potential president of the United States. All in all, one has to wonder what the Hell was John McCain thinking in selecting Palin? If McCain/Palin promise to bring change, it will be a change of from bad to worse. Here are some story highlights:
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WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal. So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

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[A}n examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image. Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.

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Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

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[I]nterviews make clear that the Palins draw few distinctions between the personal and the political. “The Palin family gets upset at personal issues,” he added. “And at our level, they want to strike back.”

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The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral. “People would bring books back censored,” recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin’s predecessor. “Pages would get marked up or torn out.”

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As she assembled her cabinet and made other state appointments, those with insider credentials were now on the outs. But a new pattern became clear. She surrounded herself with people she has known since grade school and members of her church.

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Ms. Palin chose Talis Colberg, a borough assemblyman from the Matanuska valley, as her attorney general, provoking a bewildered question from the legal community: “Who?” Mr. Colberg, who did not return calls, moved from a one-room building in the valley to one of the most powerful offices in the state, supervising some 500 people.

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Many lawmakers contend that Ms. Palin is overly reliant on a small inner circle that leaves her isolated. Democrats and Republicans alike describe her as often missing in action. Since taking office in 2007, Ms. Palin has spent 312 nights at her Wasilla home, some 600 miles to the north of the governor’s mansion in Juneau, records show. During the last legislative session, some lawmakers became so frustrated with her absences that they took to wearing “Where’s Sarah?” pins. . . . Mayors across the state, from the larger cities to tiny municipalities along the southeastern fiords, are even more frustrated. Often, their letters go unanswered and their pleas ignored, records and interviews show. *

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The administration’s e-mail correspondence reveals a siege-like atmosphere. Top aides keep score, demean enemies and gloat over successes. Even some who helped engineer her rise have felt her wrath. . . . As Ms. Palin’s star ascends, the McCain campaign, as often happens in national races, is controlling the words of those who know her well. Her mother-in-law, Faye Palin, has been asked not to speak to reporters, and aides sit in on interviews with old friends.

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P.S. Maureen Dowd describes Palin as follows:
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Like W., Sarah has the power of positive unthinking. But now we may want to think about where ignorance and pride and no self-doubt has gotten us. Being quick on the trigger might be good in moose hunting, but in dealing with Putin, a little knowledge might come in handy.