Appalling Palin

GOP presidential candidate John McCain announced his running mate for the 2008 election as Sarah Palin, a 44-year-old, 20-month-tenured governor of Alaska, mother of five (including a 4-month old infant), who previous post was mayor of Wasilla, population 6000. It was bloody obvious that the selection was a deplorable ploy to extract votes from female votes, particularly female Clinton Democrats, especially when Palin's first speech as a VP candidate focused like a laser on the "18 millions cracks at the glass ceiling" by Hillary Clinton's run in the primary. For a 72-year-old man who previously had 4 bouts with cancer, picking someone so inexperienced and ineligible to be a heartbeat away from the commander-in-chief of the free world just to win an election is shockingly irresponsible (Imagine her admonishing Russia's Putin for military invasion in Georgia and the corresponding implications on neighboring Ukraine, or negotiating peace treaties among Israel, Hamas and Hazbellah in the Middle East). Years back, McCain has ridiculed the VP's job as merely comprising of attending funerals and checking on the health of the President, and with this selection he made it more than abundantly clear how little he thinks of the post, and how arrogant he views the game of life to be cock sure he will live out the first term of his presidency. Ironically, this is the man who accused Obama to be so opportunistic that he would rather lose the war to win an election; now he showed he himself is so hypercritical that he would risk the security of his country to win his presidency.

Some commentators have already severely criticized the outrageous pick, saying that McCain is "out of his mind" rather than "thinking out of the box". I would add that the selection is grossly mis-calculated; the evangelical conservative women would have voted for GOP anyway, despite what hawkish Christians like James Dobson complained about McCain, and the majority of female Clinton Democrats with half an ounce of intelligence would realize Palin is on the wrong side of key democratic women issues: she is pro-guns, anti-choice, anti-gay-rights and not environment friendly (she voted against adding Polar bears to the list of endangered species and is pushing for offshore drilling in Alaska). Early evidences show that people do recognize the shameless political pandering and are not shy to show their discontent; a shower of boos interrupted Palin's second address when harangues of Clinton and glass ceiling were deployed again. Of course, there will always be pockets of idiotic self-proclaimed "feminists" who would vote for a female deer simply because she is female (for the record, I am not sexist and supported Hillary for her experience over Obama's would-be on-the-job training early in the primary), but let's hope the nation that is the standard bearer of higher education has more sense than the lowest denominator.

I would like to remind Americans that USA is a country mired in two expensive wars (one of which is extremely unnecessary), stuck in a sub-prime-loan weakened economy due to ill-conceived financial regulations, and fatally addicted to politically unstable Middle Eastern oil. At such a crucial juncture when the fate of the nation is to be decided, should all these important issues with far reaching implications be adequately debated and discussed, or should they be tabled and the election be decided on personalities, ephemeral interpretations of "values" and frivolous and irreverent personal attacks? It is my sincere hope that Americans would see the wise from the charlatans, the facts from the squabbles, and true patriotism from imposition. Yankees! For the love of God, for the love of the country, do 'da right thang!