Issues or Fear?

I wonder if character attacks have always been part of politics.

Yesterday, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin accused Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” She was referring to Bill Ayers, a former 1960s radical with whom Obama served on a charity board in the 1990s.

Palin’s source of information about this connection was a recent New York Times article. What she failed to mention is what the article actually said … "A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.'"

In other words, in the absence of anything substantive to say about issues, Governor Palin makes up crap about an opponent to scare people. Serving on a charity board with a man whose past actions he detested does not add up to palling around with terrorists.

I could probably find as many reasons to vote against Obama as to vote for him, and none of them would have anything to do with religion, race or age. I think he is at least as ready to lead as anyone else who has become president in my lifetime; so is McCain. Palin is clearly NOT ready to lead.

We might not think much about Vice Presidents when choosing a President, but in my life time two VPs have become President before the end of their President’s term: Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford. Two other Presidents in my life time (Ford and Reagan) survived assassination attempts and their VPs could very well have been called on to become President.

Palin said in a speech (her VP acceptance speech?) that if the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance were good enough for the Founding Fathers they’re good enough for her. Uhh, those words were added to the pledge in 1954! She also apparently doesn’t know that the Pledge itself doesn’t go all the way back to the Founding Fathers. Not everybody under 50 knows those two facts, but I expect the potential President to know at least that much about U.S. history, especially when citing those things to make a point about government.

Maybe we should pay more attention to Number Two than we usually do.

I wonder if Palin knows how to spell potato.