Pontius Palin

Alright so the title may seem a little politically incorrect, but there’s a damn funny story behind it. One of the dems from Indiana got angry about all the negativity regarding Barack’s community organizing history. He ended up saying “Well, he’s a community organizer, like Jesus” or something along those lines. And then when questioned about how Sarah Palin’s gubernatorial experience might be better suited for the presidency than Obama’s senatorial stature, the Congressman responded with, “Pontius Pilate was a governor too.”

WOW!

That was a burn and I’m surprised it didn’t make more front pages or really any pages besides cnn.com’s sidebar along with “Paris Hilton berates new BFF” and “Former ‘40 Year Old Virgin’ Star Stabs Girlfriend”. Anyways that was an aside and something I just had to share.

I hope everyone caught Palin’s interview by Mr. Charles Gibson (the worst looking of the “new big 3”). I mean alright, she has solidified her place as a super neo-con and I’m glad it got here sooner rather than later. We all sort of knew that already, but some of the stuff was at a completely different level. Non-anthropogenic global warming? Semi-automatic assault weapons allowed (sorry Alex)? Non-funding of alternative energy sources? No stem cells whatsoever? No abortions for rape or incest victims?

Cool.

And those are just the policy decisions. I can understand how that is somewhat of a boon for evangelical neo-conservatives all over America; these are their desires exemplified. And all but the gun right thing (that’s a pillar of classical conservatism) are stalwarts of specifically neo-con rhetoric. I’m hoping, and I’m not so sure anymore, that this new-found limelight on the Republican pinup girl might accidentally illuminate how absolutely nuts the neo-con wing is. And there really is no word for what they want, it is plainly nuts.

This is not to say that I don’t understand what the some of the neo-cons want (I was going to say sympathize but then I thought of Nazi sympathizers and couldn’t get that image out of my head). The rich who don’t want to pay taxes because they, in the immortal words of J.P. Morgan “owe the public nothing,” aren’t morons, they’re just coarse. A lot of those who want their big ass guns aren’t hicks, they’re those who want their second amendment rights protected. And even those who think abortion is wrong in any situation are simply doing what their faith decrees, or what they think their faith decrees at least.

All that said, Sarah Palin’s completely blind devotion to the needs and wants of the, yes, crazy neo-conservative party base, bothers me immensely.

Let me be blunt, Sarah Palin is neither a talented nor a shrewd politician. She was a mayor and then a governor, which are two posts that are considered training grounds for an executive run (all three of our most recent 2 term presidents were governors. California, Arkansas, and Texas respectively.) However all three of those presidents served at least 5 years in the governors mansion (Reagan with 8, and Clinton with 9) and also served in other state or federal capacities before their election.

And in her limited executive experience as a mayor for 6 years (overseeing less than 7000 people) and 20 months of a state containing around 400,000 individuals (just for a point of reference, Obama represented nearly as many people as an elected official in a district of Chicago) she did very little, if anything. There are always the ad hominem attacks on a new candidate, and, well, I’m not above that. She spent $50,000 just to redecorate her new mayoral office without consent of the city council of Wasilla (and just understand how much money that is in a town of 7000 in Alaska). She built an emergency dispatch center for Wasilla and the surrounding valley at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which sounds great until you read that you have two dispatch centers for an area of 83,000 people while Anchorage (the only city in Alaska that many people know) gets along fine with one. And last but never ever least that famous “bridge to no where” earmark. She asked for the millions of dollars for the new infrastructure and supported it until the day it hit newspapers as somewhat controversial.

Palin is a terrible, terrible prospective vice president, and even though I don’t think the argument that she would make a horrible “prospective president” because of McCain’s age is that compelling, it does sit in the back of my mind as a scary scenario. Read anything about Palin’s stance on a multitude of issues and you’ll be convinced (unless you agree with absolutely every piece of neo-con doctrine, and if that’s the case then why the hell are you reading this?) that she is a nutjob of the worst kind, the kind with power.

So for this weekend: I hope every one caught the premiere of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia which is quickly climbing the ranks of best shows on television that will probably be cancelled in its prime (a la Arrested Development). It aired on Thursday night but will probably be replaying well into the wee hours over the next few days. And I also hope that some people made a killing on short sells this week because lord knows enough people lost money.