The Sarah Palin Chronicles

This is the second in a series of posts about the Vice-Presidential debate this Thursday. We’ll be there at 8:45 PM ET at the online channel. Today: Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin, McCain’s VP candiate, has been dominating the news since her selection on August 29th. Palin was plucked from obscurity as the new governor of Alaska to be the candidate. My reaction when she was picked was that it seemed that McCain had gone through the checklist – “Woman? Check. Pro-life? Check. Young? Check…” – to make an unexciting choice. But in the month since, she has turned out to be a popular, even inspiring, choice.

I’ve even seen conservatives proclaiming “Vote Palin!” (even the Free Republic has gotten into the act). You can’t vote Palin! The Republican presidential nominee is John McCain, and he’s the person you have to vote for – pro-choice voting record, support of stem cell research, and all. If you wanted to vote for Palin, you should have supported her in the primary – and you may well get your chance in 2012.

Of course, more recently, always-fickle public opinion has started to turn on Palin, as a result of her disastrous interview with Katie Couric. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it now. In the interview, as well as in other appearances before and since, Palin manages to make at least three ridiculous gaffes:

• She claims that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout is actually about health care for working Americans. As opposed to say, a health care plan for working Americans, which Palin opposes even though most doctors support it. Even Harry and Louise now support a quality federal health care program!
• She claims that the fact that Alaska is close to Russia, she is an expert in foreign policy. Actually, maybe that’s not a gaffe on her part, since that’s the message Republicans have been promoting. Still, it’s a ridiculous statement. By the exact same logic, there is a Chinese family living next to me, so I am fluent in Chinese.
• She claims that if U.S. soldiers had bin Laden in their sights in Pakistan (where he most likely is right now), we would send a cross-border raid to capture or kill him. Logical as this sounds, it counts as a gaffe because this contradicts McCain’s policy and agrees with Obama’s! But think about it – what does it mean that the “tough on terror” party says that if we had Osama bin Laden in our sights, we would let him get away?

No wonder Palin is now locked away in McCain’s Arizona ranch, preparing for tomorrow night’s debate. What will she say tomorrow? That’s what will make this debate so much fun!