I haven’t watched the Republican convention, but I’m just going to take a stab in the dark here. That darned liberal media is, once again, sticking it to the poor, beleaguered GOP (running Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn 24/7 on the AM radio stations, no doubt.) Those snooty elitist Democrats are, once again, sipping their lattes, eating their arugula, and looking down on hard working, small town Americans (at least the ones who still have jobs); or, if they’re not, they’re in the welfare line with their hands out again. And, once again, Republicans are going to bring you small government and enrich us all with trickling tax cuts (and don’t you dare believe your lyin’ eyes, scrutinize the last 8 years, or think of Lucy tormenting Charlie Brown with the football.)

Did I come close? Or did they get all unpredictable, straight-shootin’, and mavericky on me?

Say, I wonder if they’ll mention that McCain was a P.O.W. Maybe I should have watched to find out.

Sorry for the all-Palin, all-the-time around here, but her story is a little like a car wreck you feel compelled to rubberneck. I just posted a comment over at Indiana Barrister that felt like it summarized Palin’s problems nicely. Abdul posted about how Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy was fair game to some extent due to the Family Values posturing

I responded that the pregnancy is the least of it; though, as he suggested, it’s put into play by the Family Values gambit — you can’t campaign on pretending to know how other families should conduct their affairs, then claim to be off limits when yours is examined.

But really, there are more important problems with Palin. She has apparently attempted to use her office to settle personal scores then fired another government official when he got in the way, then denied pressuring the government official before admitting to it. (We’ve seen this movie before; it has a crappy ending.) She apparently has a poor grasp of history, believing as she does that the Founding Fathers put “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance (a belief that’s so inaccurate, it’s hard to know where to begin.) She believes that abortion should be outlawed even in cases of rape, incest, or a chance of serious injury to the mother exists; allowing it only when a doctor believes that the mother is going to die if the pregnancy continues. She believes that “Intelligent Design” should be taught as science in the classroom. And, she was apparently a member of a pro-secessionist political party which she still supports.

Her daughter’s pregnancy is a very minor issue and probably one of the most sympathetic with which she and the McCain campaign have to deal.

I didn’t mention in my comment at Indiana Barrister, but Palin also was a director for Ted Stevens’ 527 group. Stevens has recently been indicted on federal corruption charges. Palin was also for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was “against” it. She does not believe that human activity is a cause of global warming.

The bigger picture, of course, is what this says about McCain. Only after he made his pick has he sent a legal team up to Alaska to do a more thorough vetting by, say, going through Palin’s hometown newspapers to examine her tenure as mayor. This reflects an intellectually lazy, shoot first, ask questions later decision making process on the part of McCain. He rolled the dice on Palin and, while, his come-out roll looked pretty good, it doesn’t look like he’s going to make his number.

Sarah Palin believes that the Pledge of Allegiance was written by the Founding Fathers.

11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

Sarah Palin: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance[.]

She believes the Founders put “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s hard to begin to describe how wrong that belief is. The pledge itself wasn’t written until 1892 by Socialist Francis Bellamy. And, in point of fact, “under God” was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 after years of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus. Then there is the small detail about many of the Founders not being, strictly speaking, “Christian;” and, more importantly, believing that Church & State weren’t two great tastes that taste great together.

Other positions by Sarah Palin in that questionnaire:

Abortion should be permissible only when a doctor determines that the mother’s life would end. (Rape, incest, serious injury to the mother — no abortion).

She would not support funding of factual sex education; but only “abstinence until marriage” education. (Is it inappropriate to mention the recent story about her unmarried, pregnant, 17 year old daughter.)

She believes that it is inappropriate for spousal benefits to be available to same-sex or other unmarried couples.

Update Talking Points Memo has more on the McCain campaign’s apparent failure to do much in the way of vetting Palin before McCain decided to roll the dice on her:

George says the McCainers are sending a “rapid response team of about ten operatives that includes lawyers” to do the aforementioned deeper vet. A lot of attention is being given to Gov. Palin’s daughter’s situation. The much bigger deal is the expanding trooper-gate investigation, the fact that Palin lied in her Friday speech about her purported opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere, her apparent former membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, and more. Individually, you can come to your own judgment about how consequential these stories are. What they show pretty clearly now — in addition to the news that the McCain campaign is only now sending in a vetting team — is that John McCain didn’t do any serious vetting of Palin before he invited her to join his ticket and, he hopes, become Vice President of the United States.

James Grimaldi and Kimberly Kindy of the Washington Post already have a story out that seems to undermine the McCain campaign’s attempts to assure us that Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s lack of experience is o.k. because she’s a reformer.

Palin’s sister apparently did not exercise great judgment in choosing her husband, Mike Wooten, a State Trooper. She filed for divorce, and things got ugly. No real political problem there. Messy divorce proceedings aren’t exactly uncommon.

But then, while the divorce was pending, Sarah Palin got elected governor and she and her family began pressuring the State police chief to fire Wooten. The police chief wouldn’t do it, and she fired him. Then she denied that she and her family had been involved in pressuring for Wooten’s termination.

Now she is backtracking on her denial that she pressured for Wooten’s termination, and an investigation has been launched into whether the police chief’s termination was improper.

Palin would be right at home in a Bush administration. This is fairly reminiscent of the Bush administration’s history of firing Attorneys General for personal/political reasons, denying what they had done, then stonewalling Congress.

Whatever you think of McCain, he is not going to clean out the Washington stables of the mess created by the Bush administration. Possibly he would have been tolerable if he was coming in fresh in 2000 — I voted for him in the primary back then and intended to vote for him in the general; though, as the Iraq War saying goes (not for McCain), if I knew then what I know now, I would not have cast the vote.

Ben Feller of the Associated Press offered up a bit of commentary in the lede to his story about George Bush’s role at the Republican convention:

The Democrats had the awkwardness of the Clintons at their convention. Republicans now have their version of a precarious guest: President Bush.

I didn’t see any awkwardness with the Clintons at the Democratic convention. The cheering for President Clinton was enthusiastic and heartfelt. The sense I got was that the Obama enthusiasts were cheering, “Hooray! We get to like you again!”

Now, let’s see if President Bush gets the same warm welcome from his people. And, frankly, he should get a warm welcome. After all, it was their policies he implemented. It’s not like he thought them up. Those policies just didn’t work. And that’s why we shouldn’t elect John McCain to continue their implementation.

Obama’s speech highlighted the fact that voters have a pretty clear choice to make in the fall: Hope v. Fear; Change v. Stagnation; and Future v. Past.

Since Hope plays such a central role in Obama’s campaign, maybe it’s appropriate to remind folks of the myth of Pandora. Prometheus had stolen fire from the Gods and given it to humans, royally pissing off Zeus and the others. Zeus decided to send a punishing gift. Hephaestus, smith of the Gods, created the first woman, Pandora. She was sent to the world with a mystery box. Curiosity killed the cat, and she opened the box, releasing all manner of ills into the world: greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining, etc. When those had escaped the box to plague mankind, only hope remained. The world is full of fear and other evils, but we have also been given the gift of hope to deal with these things.

Keeping with the Greek mythology a moment, in a world where war is to some extent inevitable, we have to determine what kinds of warriors we are going to be. Are we going to be clever, shield-bearing warriors in the mold of Athena; or are we going to be violent, sword waving warriors in the mold of Ares? Clearly we should choose the former. Athena was also the goddess of science and technology. She was championed by the clever Odysseus.

In short, we have to be clever, hopeful, and forward looking; not violent, fearful, and backward looking. The choice is clear.

An oldie, but a goody.