Up To The Voters

When Sarah Palin was chosen by John McCain as his running mate, I, like most of America, knew next to nothing about her. I had read a few brief articles, about the young female governor of Alaska, who had given birth to her fifth child recently, while in office but that was it.

From the initial press coverage, it seemed as if she might differ, in several ways, from my own views on prominent issues. What concerned me most was not that, exactly but whether she was likely to want to impose her own political, scientific and moral beliefs on the people of this nation. Truthfully, with the notable exceptions of abortion, teaching creationism in public schools, denying the need to actively confront environmental issues, address our failing economy, continuing the current, multiple, unilateral, foreign wars of aggression and denying non heterosexuals equal rights, I find that she does not.

I am heartened by the fact, that unlike our current chief executive, she is not a drooling imbecile. Instead, she possesses the bright and bubbly intellect of a precocious, if somewhat mean, eight year old. Since her running mate is almost certain to die soon, leaving her as President, this is troubling. Assuming she falls within the high functioning moron to dull normal spectrum of most Republicans, I'm not sure she can be up to speed in time. She needs to be brought up to a nominal eighth grade level, which has been the gold standard of Republican Presidents since Nixon. She had sixteen years of formal education, with four years of actual achievement attained. At that rate, it would take sixteen more years to get her where she needs to be. If it's possible to bring her far enough along, in a lot less time than that, she probably will have gained too much intellectual insight to retain the rudimentary World view and rabid xenophobia, required of a good Republican politician. Do you suppose Dick Cheney might agree to another term as VP? He could run things for her. I'm prejudiced, I admit. I'm more comfortable with closeted gay politicians, with normal intelligence, who only pretend to embrace Republican ideals and values, in return for personal gain. They do a better job. Evil before stupidity has always been my preference.

I guess she was McCain's decision to make. It causes me to question his judgement in selecting her, more than her decision to accept. I guess now the decision is up to the voters.