Once Upon a Vice-Presidential Campaign
Special to the Cougar from Lucia Sekoff and Eline Leemans
We acknowledge the recent interviews of Sarah Palin conducted by Katie Couric, and we feel that they hurt rather than helped Sarah Palin’s cause. We also are aware of the vice presidential debate on Thursday October 2nd. With this in mind we still support our opinions below.
The selection of a vice-presidential running mate has been called the first important decision a presidential candidate will make. This decision tells you as much about the person doing the selecting as the person selected. On this count, the decision of John McCain to select Sarah Palin as his vice-president tells us that McCain is willing to put political calculation above deciding who is most qualified to be “one heart-beat” away from the presidency. Contrary to his slogan, McCain put politics, not country first.
This is without a doubt a strong charge to make, but who is Sarah Palin? Most are aware that Palin is the first term governor of Alaska, a state with a total population of about 100,000 people fewer than San Francisco. Before that she was the mayor of Wasilla, a small suburb of Anchorage. We have all heard by now that she has five children, with interesting names and stories that tug at the heartstrings of Americans. Her son, Track, is being deployed with his Army unit to Iraq. The governor recently gave birth to a baby with Down Syndrome. Her daughter, Bristol is 17, pregnant, and soon to be married to her hockey playing, high-school drop-out boyfriend.
Though all this is very fascinating, and the media is all over it, the real question is, what are her views on the policies that will effect our politics and culture?
Sarah Palin is pro-life and anti-choice. A pro-life position that includes the belief that even when the mother’s life is endangered or has been the victim of rape she should not have a choice to terminate the pregnancy. The Huffington Post has recently revealed that when Palin was mayor, she began to charge rape victims for the examinations they underwent to gather evidence against their attackers.
She seems a firm believer that government shouldn’t have control over gun ownership although apparently, control over a woman’s womb is fine. She wants creationism to be taught along side evolution in public schools. And, to add to the list, she does not believe that global warming is scientifically valid.
One of Palin’s first moves as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska was to discuss the banning of books at a local library, according to CBS News. At one point in her career, Palin even joined a movement to separate Alaska from the United States. She has been quoted saying, “Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.”
If Sarah Palin believes in a war that is God’s will; if she does not believe in a woman’s right to choose abortion; if she thinks that Americans do not need to search for alternative energy sources and that we must simply “drill, baby, drill,” for more oil, is this range of views consistent with what the majority of Americans want and subscribe to?
She gave a composed and well-received speech at the Republican convention, yet while she may be attractive, she is dangerous. The only foreign policy experience that her backers can come up with is that Alaska is next to Russia, as if that tells you anything at all about policies and decisions.
As each day goes by, Sarah Palin looks less qualified. So the question changes from, is Palin good enough to be one step away from the Oval Office? To, are either John McCain or Sarah Palin, good enough, smart enough, careful enough, truthful enough, wise enough to be trusted with running America. The truth is, America deserves much better.
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About this Story
- By The Cougar
- Posted October 6, 2008
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11:29 AM on October 9th, 2008Mac Z:
Nice job. Nice to see a good thing keep going. One thing I might mention is that the stories that she made women pay for their own evidence gathering tests, colloquially known as rape kits, have been shown to lack substantiation. What we do know is that the police chief personally opposed legislation to mandate the taxpayer covering it and favored either the criminals or the insurance companies paying for them. There is no evidence that this was Palin’s policy or that a single rape victim was ever charged.
Still a good article, she is the most extremist candidate on either ticket since Barry Goldwater if not since Henry Wallace
1:11 PM on October 14th, 2008Joe C:
Believe it or not, this is what many Americans believe. Most people think that creationism should be taught along with evolution in schools, mainly because so much of our population is scientifically illiterate. This also bleeds over into many other issues, such as our oil and energy policies and alternative energy.
Ugh.