Palin alone disqualifies McCain

By
Bill Press                                                                          Read Spanish Version

It
used to be true that the office of vice president didn’t amount to
much. Not "worth a pitcher of warm spit," in the famous
words of FDR’s first vice-president, John Nance Garner. That changed
with Dick Cheney, who exercised more power than any vice president in
history.

It
also used to be true that nobody cast their vote for president based
on the vice presidential candidate. That’s changed with Sarah Palin,
who is so unqualified she’s reason enough to vote against John
McCain.

And
that was apparent even before
her
debate with Joe Biden. So far, the McCain campaign has, quite
understandably, kept her hidden from the media. But the few
interviews she has given reveal a woman who, even many Republicans
admit, is in way over her head.

It
began when she sat down with ABC’s Charlie Gibson. Palin obviously
didn’t have a clue what the "Bush Doctrine" was, nor what
the implications of a policy of anytime, anywhere pre-emptive war are
for relations between the United States and our allies.

Alarmed
at her performance on ABC, the McCain camp dispatched several top
aides to force-feed her facts like a Strasbourg goose before her next
big interview with CBS’s Katie Couric. Alas, it did no good. Asked to
explain how Alaska’s proximity to Russia made her a foreign policy
expert, she asserted: "Because our next-door neighbors are
foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the chief executive
of." Not only that, she continued: "As Putin rears his head
and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do
they go? It’s Alaska. It’s right over the border."

The
frontier governor’s foreign policy expertise is matched only by her
economic insights.

Invited
by Couric to explain how bailing out Wall Street would rescue the
American economy, Palin offered this stunning sequence of
non-sequiturs: "Ultimately, what the bailout does is help those
who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help
shore up our economy, helping the — oh, it’s got to be all about job
creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting back on the right
track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reigning in
spending has to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for
Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a
competitive, um, scary thing." (I dare you to diagram that
paragraph!)

How
can Alaskans stay informed on current events? What magazines and
periodicals does she read, Couric wanted to know. "I’ve read
most of them," Palin insisted. Asked to name just one, Governor
Palin protested: "Um, all of them, any of them that have been in
front of me over all these years." In other words, she couldn’t
name even one — and this woman majored in journalism! Don’t you
think she’d be able to remember the name of Time or Newsweek?

Those
two interviews alone should have been enough to disqualify Palin. In
both, we saw her for who she is: a woman with a nice family who
somehow got elected governor of Alaska, but who is clueless when it
comes to national issues, whose head has suddenly been crammed with
facts and statistics, and who believes that stringing meaningless
words and phrases together is a substitute for understanding and
answering a question.

They
alone were enough to prompt former Bush speechwriter David Frum to
tell The New York Times: "I think she has pretty thoroughly —
and probably irretrievably — proven that she is not up to the job of
being president of the United States." And enough for
conservative commentator Kathleen Parker to conclude: "Palin’s
recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie
Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate
… Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League."

Unfortunately
for McCain, Palin did nothing to change that impression, or improve
her image, in the vice-presidential debate. True, she made no
embarrassing blunder. But she also showed no command of the issues,
no depth of knowledge, and no skills beyond memorizing talking points
and spitting them back to the camera. No candidate has ever used so
many words to say so little.

In
the end, however, Sarah Palin’s nomination says more about John
McCain than it does about her. Let’s be honest: You can’t have any
respect for the office of president and put someone as unqualified as
Sarah Palin just a heartbeat away.

Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "Train
Wreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too
Soon)." You
can hear "The Bill Press Show" at his Web site:
billpressshow.com. His email address is: bill@billpress.com.
(c)
2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.