Protecting Palin: a calling for truth

It has been nearly a month since Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) was chosen by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) to be his vice presidential candidate. It would be disingenuous to say that we have learned enough about her positions to actually know what she will do if she had to assume the office of the presidency. Her appearances on television and through the media have been few and far between. So far, she has been interviewed by ABC World News anchor Charles Gibson and Fox News host and conservative commentator Sean Hannity. Gibson gave her some good questions during his interview, which really highlighted some of the lack of experience and judgment that she brings to the table. Of course, her interview with Sean Hannity was about as hard-hitting as a single-A baseball team playing the New York Yankees. Palin has another TV interview lined up with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, which will air a few days prior to her Vice Presidential Debate with the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE). From all accounts, this should be an interesting exchange, if for nothing else that Palin will be interviewed by another female as opposed to a male. Nonetheless, I expect very little substance to come out of this interview. While it is apparent that Palin’s appeal has waned quite a bit since she was first nominated, I still find it scary that a certain sector of the voting electorate is still willing to accept her lack of experience. Even worse, many people defend her foreign policy experience by pointing to the proximity of Alaska to the Russian Federation. The fact of the matter is that she is a blank slate on what I consider the most important issue in this race, which is foreign policy. The answers in her interview with Charles Gibson not only showed a lack of understanding of the United States’ relationship to eastern bloc countries like Ukraine and Georgia, for example, but also show a lack of understanding of geopolitics as a whole. Of course, the pick of Sarah Palin to be McCain’s running mate has very little to do with policy, ultimately. McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said as much a couple of weekends ago on Fox News Sunday. “This election is not about issues,” said Davis. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” While this comment has since been clarified by the McCain campaign, it really sheds a light onto the mentality of the McCain campaign into why they may have selected Palin in the first place. It’s about picking someone that the American people identify with. Furthermore, it’s picking someone who (they believe) can identify with many disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters. What is scarier about this fact is that since Palin is tabula rasa on policy, there’s a very good chance that she’s being used as a vessel for promoting an agenda. This could be concluded just by observing that some of the biggest supporters of McCain selecting her were members of the “neo-con” wing of the Republican Party, such as Weekly Standard editor and Fox News contributor William Kristol, who in fact predicted that she would be picked on the June 29, 2008 edition of Fox News Sunday. I honestly do worry a lot about the prospect of this country being left in the hands of someone who lacks experience as much as Sarah Palin does. Yes, Barack Obama is by no means a very experienced candidate in his own right, but he’s been vetted by the American public for almost four years now. On the other hand, most Americans hadn’t even heard of Palin two months ago. With McCain’s age also being a factor, the prospect of a President Palin is much more likely than most would like to consider. Nonetheless, it should serve as a reminder that we must not take our selections lightly on Nov. 4.