Well done, Gerald!

But I have a bad feeling McCain will our next president. I don’t give Obama high markings anyway because I lean more in the direction of Libertarian. I’d rather go with dramatic changes to take as much power away from the federal government than to stick with the old Union that would stay together ‘til death do us part.

The reason I believe McCain will prevail in November is very simple: McCain is Bush’s only hope of avoiding prosecution for all he’s done in the past eight years. In other words, “Protect me from the long arm of liberal justice and I’ll help you get elected.”

The only other option is for Bush to stage another 9/11 attack, maybe fire a torpedo at one of our own ships in the Persian Gulf and blame it on Iran, anything to justify declaring martial law and suspending the November elections so he can stay in power. Because if he really is the Antichrist…

Dear Mr. Cox,

I very much enjoy your thoughtful appreciation of the intellectual dynamics presented by McCain’s decision.

I can tell you admire Mr. Obama. I do too. He is, regardless of this election, a brilliant man.

Thank you. You brought a ray of light into the internet dialogue.

Cyrus Clarke

Gerald,what a joy to read an article so well written. You have a great talent. Aloha from Hawaii. Jon

George W. Bush has eight years of Presidential experience, but, if constitutionally allowable, he would not win a re-election. Experience is not everything.

Barack Obama was able to beat a field of much more “experienced” Democratic candidates, but experience wasn’t what the Left was looking for.

This election, hopefully, is about judgment. Pandering to the lunatic religious right with a token woman (hunter, pro-life, mega church) VP shows poor judgment and more George Bush-style politics. Mitt Romney would have been the experienced choice, but having a Mormon on the ticket would make the fundies sick.

Gerald, it’s not worth reasoning with Republicans. If Limbaugh says it’s cool, they give their blind support.

Where does she get off thinking she can be vice president of the United States? Up against the one million years in the Senate her opponent, Joe Biden, has logged in between expensive rides at taxpayer expense on the Acela, what can she offer? Mayor of a town of six people and ten caribou [sneer]? Miss Congeniality [sneer, sneer]? Bastard-baby grandma [sneer, sneer, sneer]? Poster chick for “family values” [sneer, sneer, sneer, sneer]?

Sorry, I’m running out of sneers.

But, seriously, just look at the negatives: she’s a popular first-term governor, she’s a woman, she’s happily married, she has five kids, one of them with Down’s syndrome, she’s a maverick, she’s from way beyond the Beltway, she’s taken on both the Republican Party and Big Oil, she shoots automatic weapons, she can kill a moose with a butter knife and fillet a sea lion with a smile, her husband’s a roustabout Eskimo snowmobile champ, she’s a hockey mom, she was Miss Wasilla, she looks like she should be playing Cecily, the saucy librarian, in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties, and she doesn’t wear pantsuits. Heck, she hasn’t even appeared yet on Meet the Press! I mean, who in his right mind would vote for her?

Sure, if she were one of ours, not only would we have nominated her by acclamation, since she fulfills every trope of feminism except for her unfortunate and inexplicable opposition to murdering unborn children, we would also have made at least two TV movies about her life, celebrating her choice to have her fifth child and the announcement yesterday that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant and is going to marry the teenage father of her child. That’s the kind of heartwarming, inclusive, empowering story we love — she’s like Juno come to life as Juneau, set in Mystery, Alaska.

But she’s not a Democrat, which despite her va-va-va-voom appearance, means she’s not really a woman, which is one of the reasons we’ve spent the past four days since McCain unveiled her trying to tear her limb from limb. Just because she’s the governor of a state sandwiched between two obscure and unimportant countries, Canada and Russia, and spent more time in her first five minutes visiting American troops in Iraq than Evita Barry did during his entire Rainbow Tour, what could she possibly know about foreign policy? It’s not like she’s John Edwards or something.

So that’s why we’re having our Wellstone Funeral Moment at the moment. We mean well; we promised ourselves we wouldn’t go over the top with our outright loathing of the Neanderthals who preach “Christian” values while practicing Wiccanism and child sacrifice and who hate black people and gay people and want to destroy the environment just because they can, and want to amass more money than even John Kerry or Jon Corzine or Herb Kohl or Jay Rockefeller or Dianne Feinstein — the five richest senators — or Ted Kennedy or John Edwards or Nancy Pelosi have. That, usually, is the Kos Kidz’s job. Along with speculating exactly how Bush got from My Pet Goat to planting the depth charges that blew up the levees in New Orleans.

But sometimes the mask slips and you can see — whoops! — how much we hate you. Normally we’re against hate in all its forms, and embrace tolerance as one of our defining moral attributes. But when it comes to you conservatives, well, with the best will in the world, we just can’t tolerate you. You’re elitist, you’re judgmental, you’re hypocritical, and we know that deep down you hate us even more than we hate you. Therefore, by any means necessary, we will defeat you this fall. Voter fraud, “walking around” money, legions of lawyers, as many recounts as it takes — bring it on!

Because we need to take back our country. We need to take it back from fascists like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and give it back to its rightful proprietors, patriots like Henry Wallace, Sidney Hillman, Norman Thomas, Gus Hall, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Saul Alinsky, William Kunstler, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Bobby Seale, and, yes, my guy, the Talking Parrot, you know who.

And Sarah Marshall Palin stands in the way of all that. After we sent Bill n’ Hill packing with their twin gold watches in Denver, we thought we had a clear playing field. The sunshine of the uplands was ours. Mother Gaia had opened wide her arms to embrace us, shunning the Orcs and the Uruk-hai of the Anti-Slavery, Anti-Segregation, Anti-Secularism, Anti-Sedition and Anti-Surrender Party. We were going up against Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, Herbert Hoover and Whoever, Daddy Bush and Dan Quayle, Gerald R. Ford and, well, Bob Dole.

Piece of cake, walk on the beach, a Renaissance Weekend in a non-denominational heaven for atheists. Until Sarah Marshall Palin showed up, bringing with her 10 million bucks for the bad guys in three days, a level of enthusiasm not seen since Ronnie was a pup, and a clear shot to Republican dominance with her and Bobby Jindal and whatever seduced and corrupted minority group is coming next for eons to come.

So that’s why we hate you, Sarah Marshall Palin. We hate you because you remind the other side of their wives, their girlfriends, their daughters, and make them want to fight for you against our sneers and our smears. We hate you because you’re smart and accomplished and didn’t make your bones on the back of Monica Lewinsky. We hate you because you’ve made us forget that our last two candidates for vice president were Joe Lieberman and John Edwards, whoever they were.

We hate you because you’re smart and beautiful and we wish we had women like you on our side.

We hate you.

Ah, not so quick there.

Obama also has much more experience using (and probably selling) drugs than Gov Palin.

And, you can’t make Gov Palin’s experience as Governor of Alaska just disappear under the carpet the way you try. In fact, while you point out Miss Wasilla experience, twice, the Governor experience seems to be missing from your analysis.

An inconvenient truth?

Ah, not so quick there.

Obama also has much more experience using (and probably selling) drugs than Gov Palin.

And, you can’t make Gov Palin’s experience as Governor of Alaska just disappear under the carpet the way you try. In fact, while you point out Miss Wasilla experience, twice, the Governor experience seems to be missing from your analysis.

An inconvenient truth?

Obama says his leadership of his nomination campaign is his best claim to exectutive experience.

Compared to Govenor of Alaska that is weak, weak, weak!

PS. Apparently Obama has written autobiographies and speechs - no law articles and very few if any laws.

So Obama has a Harvard degree and has “graduated” from major universities, so has Bush, Clinton, Biden, and most “other” Washington Politicians. For a man who claims “change” Obama is cut from the same Ivy League “elitist” cloth as are most politicians.

Furthermore some of America’s greatest presidents did not even have a college education or some even a high school education. Proving it does not take an Ivy League Genius to run America.

Palin is a common woman, not a lawyer and is cut from the same cloth as are most “average” Americans, she typifies what American Politics was “supposed to be” a vision that the “everyman” could lead our country and return home to the life they had before entering politics. Compare this to the entrenched Politicians who have made a career out of being so, not what the founding fathers envisioned for the governance of America

In formulating your argument against Palin, you’ve also managed to show that Obama is currently unprepared to lead our nation. After all, Obama has less experience than the city manager of Beloit, the mayor of Madison, and probably thousands upon thousands of other govt officials. Bravo.

Writing and delivering a good speech can/should only get you so far. I hit a pretty good pitching wedge….doesn’t mean that I should be on the PGA tour though.

In formulating your argument against Palin, you’ve also managed to show that Obama is currently unprepared to lead our nation. After all, Obama has less experience than the city manager of Beloit, the mayor of Madison, and probably thousands upon thousands of other govt officials. Bravo.

Writing and delivering a good speech can/should only get you so far. I hit a pretty good pitching wedge….doesn’t mean that I should be on the PGA tour though.

11:08 -

PLEASE, PLEASE STOP GLORIFYING STUPIDITY.

Why would you say “Palestine” if it doesn’t exist?

Why would you say “Palestine” if it doesn’t exist?

Well written Gerald.

@9:48am: Did you really say that?

@11:50am: Did you read the article? His whole point was using “elected office or appointed political position” to define “experience” is flawed.

Your editorial is An Exercize In Omission, Gerald! The Chicago Annenberg Research Project (CARP - deliciously ironic!) is Barrack Hussein Mohammed Obamas only real position with executive leadership responsibilities.

The ‘genius’ Barry Obama spent 4 years (1995-1999)as founding chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Research Project, demonstrating his ‘superlative executive skills’ managing and distributing $110 million to improve scholastic performance in and reform of Chicago schools. Unfortunately, the project failed to achieve any significant results during the tenure of the’intellectual giant’. From the Final Technical Report of the Chicago Annenberg Research Project: “Results suggest that among the schools it supported, the Challenge had little impact on school improvement and student outcomes, with no statistically significant differences between Annenberg and non-Annenberg schools in rates of achievement gain, classroom behavior, student self-efficacy, and social competence.” That is what $110 million buys you, when you have inexperienced, inept and/or corrupt leadership.

Is this the ‘transformational leadership’ you desire, Gerald? It is the only real management experience that Mr. Obama has. I can see why you omitted these 4 years of the Obama experience from your comparative diatribe!

OOOPPSSS! It seems you also forgot to divulge that Mr. Obama worked directly with the former Weatherman and admitted terrorist William Ayers (whom Obama described in the Philadelphia debate as merely a “neighbor”). Mr. Ayers was head of the operating arm of the CARP. Working with Mr. Obama, they distributed scores of millions of dollars to grantees in the wards of The Windy City. Pockets were well lined with huge sums of money but the 4 year long Chicago Annenberg Research Project, show casing the exectutive leadership skills of Barrack Hussein Mohammed Obama to bring Hope and Change to the needy masses, produced no positive results. None. Nada. Zip. Zerooooo.

You would think one of the ‘wisest men in Washington’ could have done better than that, wouldn’t you Gerald?

Until just recently, University of Illinois professor and unrepentent Weathermen terrorist William Ayers had successfully blocked release of the Chicago Annenberg Research Project files (132 boxes, containing 947 file folders, a total of about 70 linear feet of material) from the University of Illinois - Chicago publicly funded library. Ayers and Obama syncophants have had 8 months to purge any ‘troubling’ documents from those files and the remainder are just begining to be examined now.

What’s that smell? Ahhhh, it’s the putrid smell of Chicago democrat corruption, obstruction, and cover ups!

Keep trumpeting the illusions of the Wizard of Obama…. and pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain, Gerald. It will just get in the way of your ‘artfully ambiguous and shamefully asinine conclusions’.

Invictus Maneo

Wow, aren’t you just happy that it’s not McCain running for president? That dude’s a total RINO.

Oh, wow. What mindless replies.

Big words don’t make a big argument. Try comparing apples to apples, not Obamas to Palins.

Big words don’t make a big argument. Try comparing apples to apples, not Obama to Palin.

You guys keep ripping into Obama for his lack of experience, which is a reasonable thing to criticize him for. Yet, that has never been one of the staples of his campaign. In addition, I think Gerald was trying to illuminate two things with his piece. First, that the claim that Palin is more experienced than Obama is farfetched; and that experience is just one factor that can not be looked at solely but in conjunction with other factors when trying to figure out the best candidate. By your standards President Bush, because he owned the texas rangers and was the governor of Texas, had more experience before he entered office than Obama has and President Bush has been arguably one of the worst presidents in our countries history.

And to the fool who dropped the old “elitist” bomb. To assume that going to an Ivy League School makes a person an “elitist” is an extraordinarily misguided conclusion. Since you went there though, I’ll call your bet and raise you as John McCain has too many houses recall how many he actually owns, he cannot operate email, and is in the process of learning “the Google”. Making him both elitist and ignorant. Now is John McCain really elitist and ignorant? No, but there are shades of gray in any person’s life that we could spin to make them look like stalin or princess diana. So lets leave the vague generalizations for the comment board of the high school newspapers

You guys keep ripping into Obama for his lack of experience, which is a reasonable thing to criticize him for. Yet, that has never been one of the staples of his campaign. In addition, I think Gerald was trying to illuminate two things with his piece. First, that the claim that Palin is more experienced than Obama is farfetched; and that experience is just one factor that can not be looked at solely but in conjunction with other factors when trying to figure out the best candidate. By your standards President Bush, because he owned the texas rangers and was the governor of Texas, had more experience before he entered office than Obama has and President Bush has been arguably one of the worst presidents in our countries history.

And to the fool who dropped the old “elitist” bomb. To assume that going to an Ivy League School makes a person an “elitist” is an extraordinarily misguided conclusion. Since you went there though, I’ll call your bet and raise you as John McCain has too many houses recall how many he actually owns, he cannot operate email, and is in the process of learning “the Google”. Making him both elitist and ignorant. Now is John McCain really elitist and ignorant? No, but there are shades of gray in any person’s life that we could spin to make them look like stalin or princess diana. So lets leave the vague generalizations for the comment board of the high school newspapers

11:08AM: McCain is — cut cloth cut cut cloth — a really goood candidate — cut cloth cut cloth — he has lots of experience — cloth cut — and you can tell he loves america — cloth — and that he has good issues that I agree with.

When hate radio started screaming about how Gov. Palin’s daughter was being attacked by the left, I remembered a remark that John McCain made in 1998 at a Senate Republican Campaign Fundraiser in Washington. Taking aim at the president’s 17 year old daughter, McCain “joked:” ” Know why Chelsea is so ugly? Because Janet Reno’s her father.” The next day, the lifestyle section of the Washington Post (whose reporter was at the party), reported that McCain “made a remark that was so viscious that it can’t be printed.” McCain’s hometown Arizona Republic picked up the story, verified it, and ran it. Then the AP picked it up. Then, and only then, did McCain apologize —to the President. But to this day he has never apologied to his target Chelsea.

So when you read about Republicans crying foul, look at the historical record of John McCain and his attacks on the 17 year old daughter of the President.

A few quibbles: Obama did not write his own speech (though he did have some say on the text), and Palin had much more input than you gave her credit for.

This bothered me, too:

“I’d rather have the most transformative leader in Washington and one of the wisest men in Washington leading my nation than a man who can’t remember how many houses he has and Miss Wasilla. I’d rather have a brilliant and internationally acclaimed orator facing down Vladimir Putin than a respected but unspectacular lawmaker well past his prime.”

By what criteria is Obama the “most transformative leader in Washington?” Or the “most wise?” You say this as if this was an established fact, with nothing to back up your argument. And his “briliant” internationally acclaimed oratory means nothing to Vladimir Putin. I’d take the respected and unspectacular lawmaker over a man with a silver tongue with Obama’s qualifications any day.

Alaska may be next to Russia, but I’ve actually been to Russia, so I have more foreign policy experience than Sarah Palin.

although you try to fight for your side, Gerald, I must say you are falling into the same pit hole that most Americans are, the writing out of text and reading what you want to read. From an Obama supporter stand point, great job on minimizing the fact that Obama is a bunch of “change” talk with no clear (or rough draft points) to actually do something that would better our country. From the McCain support, shame on you Mr. Cox for trying to compare the Obama to Palin, who are not even in the same field being that Palin is not running for the position of president. So on the experinace talk, for the office in question I would say Palin is more “experienced” for the office she is running for than is Obama, considering they are equal in alot of aspects. I do not know about you but I would not want my next presidential leader to have mere qualifications of a vice president.

although you try to fight for your side, Gerald, I must say you are falling into the same pit hole that most Americans are, the writing out of text and reading what you want to read. From an Obama supporter stand point, great job on minimizing the fact that Obama is a bunch of “change” talk with no clear (or rough draft points) to actually do something that would better our country. From the McCain support, shame on you Mr. Cox for trying to compare the Obama to Palin, who are not even in the same field being that Palin is not running for the position of president. So on the experinace talk, for the office in question I would say Palin is more “experienced” for the office she is running for than is Obama, considering they are equal in alot of aspects. I do not know about you but I would not want my next presidential leader to have mere qualifications of a vice president.

The fact that you feel it is necessary to defend and compare your PRESIDENTIAL candidate to the GOP VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE in order to invalidate her is comical in itself.

The fact that you feel it is necessary to defend and compare your PRESIDENTIAL candidate to the GOP VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE in order to invalidate her is comical in itself.

Wow. That’s some response. I’d like to respond directly to Mr or Ms. Anonymous at 4:30, as they seem a bit confused: Obama wrote his own keynote speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1837368,00.html .

Sarah Palin’s speech was written for her, before she was selected as vice presidential nominee. She added a few details herself: http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/09/04/who-wrote-palins-speech/ .

The wise man I refer to is Joe Biden. I was comparing the tickets, hence the statement following that reads “than a man who can’t remember how many houses he has and Miss Wasilla.”

Should clear a few things up for you.

-The Author Gerald Cox

Why are all the comments in italics?

Gerald,

Come on, man. Your entire argument is overshadowed by not even mentioning her period as governor.

Gerald - I want an iPod in a dirty sock too.

An excellent article, but there is one significant omission.

Id Ms Palin is to adduce her experience, then we need to know what light that “experience” sheds on her fitness to govern.

As things stand we know that she tried to appoint herself cheif censor of library books in Wasilla, tried to sack the librarian, in her first act as mayor did virtually the entire council management team, had to have an administrator appointed to run things, spent $15 million of council money on a sports complex for 5000 people in a town that needed urgent sewage works and forgot to check that she had title to the land before building, adding more to the cost, left the council in debt, ran for governor supporting the Gravina Bridge project but opposed it afterwards when it became controversial, ran the Matanuska Maid dairy into the ground leaving the taxpayers a huge bill, abused her office trying to get a police chief sacked who wouldn’t fire her brother in law … it goes on …

Her experience, such as it is, speaks against her.

Gerald,

I want to thank you for writing an article that avoided the smears that were the unfortunate norm over the past week. It was refreshing to read something that tried to deal with issues instead of empty allegations of general unfitness.

I think that you missed part of the whole experience issue. It isn’t just who has more experience, but what kind of experience they have. Not all experience is applicable toward all positions.

An example of the type of experience Gov. Palin has that Sen. Obama lacks happened in the last week in July and first week of August. Torrential rains caused major river flooding near Fairbanks. As Governor, she had to respond to this crisis immediately. There was no time to craft a bill, debate it, ammend it, then schedule a vote. The emergency had to be dealt with in real time. From reports in the Fairbanks Daily Miner, she dealt with it in a pretty satisfactory manner.

Nothing in Sen. Obama’s resume shows an ability to deal with a crisis. The closest I know of is his responding to the Russian invasion of Georgia, and that is not generally regarded as a shining moment of his. The first time President Obama faces a crisis, he might not have three days to get his response right.