Posted by susan jenn... on September 11, 2008 12:27 AM

For those who try to equate Ms. Palin's experience with Mr. Obama's, somehow it gets lost in these discussions that Mr. Obama is a Constitutional scholar, who was a professor of Constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for 12 years. (Sadly, in recent years Bush-supporting conservatives seem not to care anymore about the Constitution.) Much gets made of the fact that Mr. Obama has not held an executive position, while Ms. Palin has been governor of the 3rd least populous state in the nation (population less than that of Charlotte, NC), albeit for only a year and a half. Consider this: neither Abraham Lincoln nor JFK were governors prior to becoming president; George W. Bush was. People really need to read up on who Mr. Obama is. He is a very accomplished individual who has been extremely busy throughout his young life, having lived in several regions of our nation (the Northeast, the Midwest, the West), as well as throughout the world; having written books, proven himself as a leader and an organizer; having worked as an attorney, as president of the Harvard Law Review, as a professor of the Constitution, as a state legislator, as a U.S. senator, serving on a variety of committees and writing and/or sponsoring countless bills, etc. And he began his career as an exceptional student, holding degrees from the prestigious Columbia University and Harvard University, with no family connections to get him in (Ms. Palin holds only a bachelors degree from the middle-of-the-road University of Idaho). Above all, Barack Obama is a man with a tremendous gift for inspiring, which cannot be matched by anyone I can think of. To try to equate Ms. Palin's background with Mr. Obama's broad range of experiences, education, work and abilities is laughable. Ms. Palin is not Hillary Clinton by any stretch of the imagination. Nor does she come anywhere close to being the most qualified Republican candidate for Vice President (particularly given the heightened stakes: a 72 year-old presidential candidate who's already had several bouts with cancer, and whose own father and grandfather never made it past their mid 70s). This is the most obvious case of voter pandering I can remember, and anyone who suggests otherwise is delusional. These are serious times and the stakes are extremely high. I wish our nation could muster the wisdom to treat it as such.

Posted by Jane on September 10, 2008 7:52 PM

It seems like Pallin is running for office and not McCann. I don't think a V.P. should be more in the limelight than the guy actually running.

I'm sick of seeing her face in the news, regardless what the issue -- it's too much. It looks more like the Sanji contestant on American Idol gathering support for celebrity popularity even though McCann stinks.

McCann is worse than Bush, and just because he dressed himself with Pallin (a feather boa) - he's still just as bad and an even worse choice for Preisent than Bush,and not fit for the job of bringing back democracy.

Posted by James on September 09, 2008 7:08 PM

People talk about Palin's foreign policy experience or lack there of but why doesn't anyone talk about Obama's lack of experience? Is Palin ready to lead? Probably not but then again she isn't the one running for President. She has been the Governor of Alaska for two years, before that she chaired and served as Ethics Supervisor of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004 and prior to that she was mayor of a small town. Does this give her much foreign policy experience? No. However it does give her quite a bit of executive experience which all three Senators on the ticket lack because lets face it Senators aren't very good with numbers and they don't have to balance a budget. If people claim that balancing Alaska's budget is a small task they don't know what they are talking about since in 2007 the budget signed into law was $6.6 billion, compare this with Obama's Senate operating budget of $4.3 million and you have quite a desparity.
When comparing Obama with Palin you basically have to say that Palin has the edge with executive experience and both have little to no foreign policy experience, (Obama hadn't been to Iraq for 2+ years until he went a month ago, yet he still spoke as though he knew the exact situation on the ground there). He also has only been a Senator for close to 3 years and for more than half of that has been on the campaign trail running for President. This fact that he has been running for President is the reason why some people claim that he is qualified for the job because he has been in the public eye for the last year and a half.
If you disagree with Palin's views then by all means argue against them, I personally am socially liberal and a fiscal conservative so I don't agree with a lot of her social views. However I think the Democrats are making a huge mistake by bringing up the "experience" argument when it comes to Palin because first of all she isn't running for President and second the guy they have running for President is by most measures even less experienced than Palin.

Posted by  on September 08, 2008 3:55 PM

First, please realize that Jeremiah Wright is no longer Obama's pastor. He did make an effort to stand by Wright, knowing he'd take a political hit for it, but Wright showed he was more interested in his 15 minutes of fame than anything else, and Obama did what he had to do.

Secondly, as I've said before, experience? Mixed blessing. Experience can give you better insight on things, but it can also cause you to become set in your ways, even if your ways are not the best way to go about things. At the same time, inexperience can cause you to make rookie mistakes, but it also allows you to look at things in ways that those more experienced have lost the ability to see.

As for taking a stand on things, Obama's stands are firm, always have. The thing is, sometimes you have to capitulate on little things in order to make long-term progress. Let us assume an issue in which the possible stances are numbered from 1-10. Let's say I wish to take stance #1, but am willing to accept anything down to stance #4. You prefer stance #10. I don't know what your breaking point is. My goal is to slide you as far up the scale as possible- if possible, win you over to stance #1 if I can, but if I can only get stance #4, I can live with that. I'll take it and work to get further up the scale at a later date. But if you only are willing to go to stance #5, there's no deal to be made.

Long story short, if I campaign for stance #1, but end up agreeing to stance #4, that's not necessarily being wishy-washy. That's taking what I can get.

As for 'above my pay grade', he did apologize for that:

Appearing on ABC-TV’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” the Illinois senator was asked whether his response – “above my pay grade” — to the question of when a baby gains human rights was “too flip,” Obama told Stephanopoulos, “Probably. Yes. All I meant to communicate was that I don’t presume to be able to answer these kinds of theological questions.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/09/07/obama-say s-above-my-pay-grade-comment-was-too-flip/?mod=goo glenews_wsj

And as I'm getting short on time here, I'll tackle Saddleback last. It may have looked like he was having problems with questions, but what you saw was simply Obama's preferred style of answering: drawn-out explanations. He does it in his stump speeches too; he likes to go through the text beforehand to scrub out any soundbites, forcing the media to play his clips in context.

Failure to provide a soundbite does not mean you aren't answering a question satisfactorily. Ability to provide one does not mean you necessarily understand an issue, particularly a complicated issue like abortion or immigration (which I don't believe came up at Saddleback, but still). I think that was the way Saddleback got framed. The guy who gave answers you could replay on the evening news won. Don't expect it to stop anytime soon. Obama can hurl huge bricks of policy at you, such as here:

http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id= 40

...and you will never see it broadcast. But one line like "he must think you're stupid" and it's all over the place with little to no qualifying context.

Posted by Jennifer on September 08, 2008 2:22 PM

I think that McCain's age gives him MORE life experience, which is what we need as a leader. Obama is too young, too inexperienced and too wishy washy on the issues at hand. Take a stand, man!!... saying that some decisions are "above his position" to comment on is saying that he can't commit. It scares me to have a man with a Muslim name and a pastor (for 25 years) who hates Americans (who has taught Obama his values), trying to rule a country based upon Christian values. I know people want change, however change will happen either way. A new president will be in office. Can't we look at the person and not a political party? In the interview with Rick Warren on television, Obama struggled with his answers and even copped out of a few, not being able to take a stand one way or another. McCain had straight-forward answers, had an opinion and even had time to get asked more questions because of that.
And props to him for choosing a woman VP. That's change if I've ever seen it.

Posted by Ben Obiano... on September 06, 2008 6:03 AM

First McCain comes back from the politically dead and now this lady shows up. Sarah Palin just came right out of the blue and everyone is so in awe of her, including me to an extent. I think most of the awe is from her good looks and spunky attitude. Man she's fine! I am very impressed with her record in Alaska but I don't think that her record compares to Barack Obama's or Joe Biden's when it comes to the politics of the nation. She lacks a lot of experience in foreign affairs and her political views are a little skewed to say the least. She's barely been out of Alaska a state of only some odd 700,000 people. I live in Indianapolis, IN, with a population of 1,000,000 plus people. I think she's done great but on a very small scope. To me McCain picking her as his presumed VP was kind of gimmicky focusing on the women's vote. I kind of felt that he was playing to America's ignorance. If he's trying to get the votes that Hilary Clinton got in the primaries its not really going to work. Also to find out that McCain only met her on only one other occasion before selecting her to be his VP bothers me a lot. Its going to be kind of interesting to see how Palin and Biden debate each other though. I just hope that this election is not won by how many women vote for Palin or how many black people vote for Obama. I hope that my fellow Americans take some time to sit down elaborate on the facts of each candidate before they vote. Don't make it a popularity contest. We should all be judging on characters and strengths. Our future will be in their hands for the next 4 to 8 years. Remember the last 8 years?

Posted by Lisa Ling on September 06, 2008 2:41 AM

I will give Palin the benefit of the doubt and wait to see how she thinks. The debates will be very telling. In fairness, Obama has had 18 months to deliver his message and though has different international experiences as McCain, I have closely monitored is thought process vis and vis foreign policy and found his positions to be hugely impressive. As someone who has spent much of her career overseas, I have been praying for a leader who is willing to apply diplomacy to foreign policy. When Obama said that we would be willing to sit down and talk to leaders of countries that are considered adversaries...I was shocked. I was surprised because he had the courage to say that knowing that he would be violently attacked because he knew it was the right answer. And despite endless verbal derision, he stuck to his position. I was and have been impressed ever since. I wouldn't make a big deal of Palin if McCain weren't 72 years old, but this is serious. If her hawkish speech is any indication, I can't say I am overly enthused.

Posted by Brandi on September 05, 2008 11:54 PM

It seems to me that Palin is just a "good ol' girl" and that to me is a good thing, in a sense. Maybe it will be good to have the ideals of a down home person. If she is the person for the job, then it will pan out. I dont think that we should boycott Palin until we see what she can do for us. She makes me think of myself, and every other soccer mom, homemaker, strong, "MAVERICK" woman out there... and there will be women vote for her just for that reason. So, seeing as how she is very likely to be the next VP, maybe people shouldnt be so quick to condemn. I am not really excited about Obama or McCain... I think the election has turned into a popularity contest rather than that of "who is the best person for the job". But, regardless.... America needs change, more than it has in a very long time, and Palin is different than our typical VP... maybe that is what we need.

Posted by  on September 05, 2008 11:25 PM

Obama clearly has less foreign policy experience than McCain. And it is McCain that is the Presidential nominee, not Palin. Palin was not chosen as VP in order to deal with those matters.

Posted by cmn05 on September 05, 2008 3:55 PM

Let's be real. Should McCain win this November -- and by god, I hope not -- he'd be sworn in at 72. I think it's fair to say that he's old. The chances of something happening to him health-wise are substantially high. Being POTUS obviously involves a ridiculous amount of stress (among other potential health concerns), and should something happen to the man, Palin would be the one to take over.

Do we really want her to be second in command?

I think I read somewhere that her 'foreign policy experience' involves Alaska "being close to Russia". Seriously?

Fact check? http://politicsanew.com/2008/09/04/fact-checking-t he-sarah-palin-acceptance-speech/

And for the record, I think it's great that we have a woman on at least one ticket. Dylan said it best, "The times they are a changin'".

Posted by Lisa Ling on September 03, 2008 10:04 PM

Echelon,
Just because he was a POW, does not mean that John McCain has more foreign POLICY experience and better judgement that Obama.

Posted by Echelon on September 03, 2008 8:15 PM

...and Obama has more foreign policy experience? If foreign policy experience is so important, isn't it more important that the Presidential candidate has more experience than the VP candidate?

Perhaps you're allowing yourself to skew this assessment, due to the fact you tend to agree more with the Democratic Candidate's policies?