Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker thinks Palin should quit. Excerpt:
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Ms. Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.Ms. Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage, and there's not much content there. ... If BS were currency, Ms. Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
If Ms. Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman - and the first on a Republican presidential ticket - we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.
What to do?
Mr. McCain can't repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP's unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Mr. Obama faces the same problem with Mr. Biden.
Only Ms. Palin can save Mr. McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
Do it for your country.
This is wrong. Obviously it's not going to happen, and if it were to happen, the McCain campaign would collapse. Johnnie Mac's got to dance with the one that he brung. If Palin dropped out now, it would be plain to all why she had done so, and it would make McCain a laughingstock.
That said, Parker is right about what a disappointment Palin has been. It's all a damn shame. But it is what it is. Jim Geraghty at NRO points out the real problem with Palin:
And Parker puts her finger on Palin's real problem in these interviews. It's not a lack of smarts or analytical ability. It's that her past jobs as mayor, chair of the state's oil and gas commission and governor have not required her to know about a slew of fields of knowledge that are pretty much required for a president or vice president. Until a few weeks ago, Sarah Palin didn't need to formulate policy responses to how to track al-Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan, or think about the benefits and drawbacks of the health care reform proposal Mitt Romney put forth in Massachusetts, or determine where to draw the line in interrogation of captured terrorists, or assess how the nation as a whole should respond to a globalized economy or come up with how to deal with a Wall Street meltdown. What she did need to know - energy policy, tax policy, some social policy areas - she knows fine and can articulate her views at length.
UPDATE: John Mark Reynolds takes serious issue with the Parker column. Excerpt:
Parker faced a problem in writing this column.It is hard to go "downstream" without looking like one has done so for the sheer ease of doing so. It is hard to agree with conventional wisdom without looking like one is merely sucking up one's establishment friends.
This would be unfair, but that is the hell of swimming downstream. People often assume you are an intellectual lightweight when in reality you have courageously chosen to do the easy thing.
Fortunately, if one wishes to avoid these charges one can always assert the situation has grown "complicated."
I'm sorry, but this is cheap. The idea expressed is that Parker can only have changed her mind on Palin because Parker wants to suck up to her establishment friends. Is it not possible that Parker could have been initially enthusiastic about Palin, but the more she saw of Palin, the evidence changed her opinion? That's what happened to me. I don't give a rat's ass about sucking up to my establishment friends, whatever that means. Insofar as I have any friends in any establishments, they are conservative. I have spent most of my professional life working in professional environments where my colleagues are openly hostile at worst and unsympathetic at best to conservatism. So has Kathleen Parker. The idea that conservative journalists who have worked as long in such environments have any interest in currying favor with liberals reflects a cartoonish understanding of how these things work.
Isn't it just simpler to recognize that Parker has changed her mind about Palin, and let it stand on its own? Why resort to a cheap and completely implausible ad hominem attack on Parker? Of course a column like this by someone like Parker lends aid and comfort to Team Obama. So what? Parker's job is not to get John McCain elected. Her job is to look at the world around her, and to analyze and comment on it. To tell the truth, as she sees it. If Parker is wrong about Palin, okay, she's wrong about Palin. But that only makes her wrong; it doesn't make her corrupt, as Reynolds implies that she is.
Besides which, if Reynolds complains that Parker doesn't know enough about Palin's views on foreign affairs to make a competent judgment on her abilities, why is that Parker's fault? It's Palin who will not make herself available to the press to discuss these matters -- and the few times that she has, she's embarrassed herself. Reynolds is asking Parker to value hope over experience.
One of the least attractive features of the Right is a tribalist impulse to punish anyone who is disloyal to the Cause -- the Cause being defined not as any particular set of principles, but Getting Our Team To Power. I guess the Left does this too, but I don't pay enough attention to their internecine battles to say for sure. If the Bush years have taught us anything it ought to be that the instinct to be loyal to the Cause instead of loyal to the truth can never end well. The Cause, if it is just and right, can only be strengthened by truth-telling, and open discussion and debate. Trying to shut up people like Kathleen Parker by suggesting that she's an elitist who seeks to abandon Our Sarah for the sake of ingratiating herself with some supposed Liberal Establishment is self-defeating. It's other things too, but I'll leave it at that.
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I am a bleeding heart liberal, convinced that Obama is what this country needs in order to re-establish respect in the international community.
McCain is a good man, in fact a national hero. Just not presidential material.
I happened to catch a reference to Parker's article on MSNBC, so I took the time to read it. I was not surprised at her reaction to Palin's inability to come up with a reasonable response, especially on the Foreign Policy/Russia/Alaska. I have been dying to see Palin unscripted in a variety of areas, so when the Couric interview was aired, I watched with delight. Then I found myself beginning to feel sorry for her, and in fact, embarrassed for her, McCain and the country in general. I want to see her defeated, but not humiliated, for the sake of our admittedly flawed process.
I also admire Mr. Dreher's assessment of the response. I have seen Obama and Biden pull some doozies, and I will be the first to condemn them for a brainless miscue. And I have seen them appropriately criticized in the main stream media for these gaffes. But an entire movement doesn't pull out the howitzers to obliterate the liberal pundits that have strayed from their mission.
I saw some of the responses at freerepublic.com; there are some scary cats out there.
Although I know that I will never agree with Mr. Dreher on 90+% of his political views, I admire his ability to rise above the fray and inject a little common sense into the hysteria about us.
Keep up the good work, and go Obama.
I am not in agreement with the "aging shrew" comment but I am somewhat disappointed by Parker's "profile?" of Palin as an unqualified VP candidate. Therehas been enough aired regarding the background of both Palin and Obama so one has to ask, Who has the more riunded background from a political standpoint? Anyone who has done research on Obama knows thathe has been tied into the "corrupt Chicago political machine "since the beginning of his political career. HE HAS NO EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE!!!! Has he ever has "a job"? Everyone is asking the question as to "whould Palin be able to step in as President if something happened to McCaic?" If Obama has the credentials???? to run for President how can we question her ability to assume that same position especially when you have to accept that the presidential position is that of a "figurehead". Does this position really have any power? NOOOOOOOO. Don't believeit; Farm Bill voted, over-ruled by Congress. Doesn't like rulings by Supreme Court; too bad. Want to go to war? Can't. Congress has to declare war. The new Spending Bill, Bush didn't like it but he new if he voted it that CONGRESS would override it. New Bail Out Plan? CONGRESS will decide not the President. His advisors, committees, and "close friends" tell what "is best". With this scenario of our dismally run legislature can anyone "not be electes to be Presidentcy?" I know what you're thinking; in this case why not Obama?? Because his association with radical, leftwing organizations, and his 200+ millions in earmarks make me question his true motives for what is best for this country.
PS. for Ms. Parker - I have always supported your opinions but this latest slant has me questioning your perspective of fairness toward an ndividual of Sarah Palin's caliber. In the history of VP candidates there has never been a more bitter attack than the one on Palin. Only a Governor? Huckabee, Rominey, and other choices were Governors. Would they have beenattacked lie this? Nobecause they would have been males. Shame on you and the rest of the left-wing media for these attacks. She will eat Biden's lunch.
Bk in Jacksonville
Eric, you must have a different understanding of what a libertarian is than I do. Sarah Palin is clearly not a libertarian, particularly on social issues. Just for example, a true libertarian would not support Palin's interest in banning books from the library in Wasilla and a true libertarian would not be an advocate of banning all abortions because they believe the state should stay out of people's personal lives, and a true libertarian would have serious disagreements with the Patriot Act and you can bet your life that Palin supports that. Some libertarians believe there should be no US government intervention in other countries. And the list goes on and on.
A social conservative does not equal a libertarian.
Sounds like Kathleen Parker is just jealous........could she secretly be a Democrat? LOL Her assertions are completely laced with bias based on taste not fact.
Call me a simpleton if you wish but Sarah Palin stands for all my conservative values and when allowed and not attacked speaks eloquently for the cause. I say if McCain/Palin does not win this election Sarah Palin is high on my list of future presidental candidates. And no I am not a male inadvertantly blinded by her physical attractivesness. But I am attracted to her good ol commen sense approach to all of our present and future concerns. Elitists go ahead and fret and make excuses for why she has found favor with us regular folk......maybe that is just what we need for a change. Go Palin!
Praying for you in Fort Wayne, IN
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