Except the article you quote, ace, is itself quite flawed. I probably shouldn't let you troll me like this, but I'm bored...
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The issue that is raised most often is her relative lack of experience and the fact that she would be "a heartbeat away from the presidency" if Senator John McCain were elected. But Barack Obama has even less experience-- none in an executive capacity-- and his would itself be the heartbeat of the presidency if he were elected.
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This is really beside the point. Running a campaign is executive experience, with Obama's campaign having a larger budget and more employees than the state of Alaska. It's not clear to me, either, that executive experience is necessary. And that argument cuts against McCain as well as Obama, since McCain has never been a governor or mayor either. Finally, I'm not sure what metric he's using to say that Obama has less experience than Palin. If we're only counting 'executive' experience, maybe I'll grant you that, but then McCain doesn't have any either. If we're using generally political experience, Obama has more experience than Palin, and at every step it's on a much larger stage.
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Sarah Palin's record is on the record, while whole years of Barack Obama's life are engulfed in fog, and he has had to explain away one after another of the astounding and vile people he has not merely "associated" with but has had political alliances with, and to whom he has directed the taxpayers' money and other money.
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I don't know why he says Palin's record is 'on the record' while Obama's is 'engulfed in fog'. I know more about Obama's education, his work as a community organizer, and his time as a legislator than I know about Palin's stints in Wasilla and Juneau, and Palin's the one stonewalling a bi-partisan investigation, not Obama. Sowell mentions 'vile people', but doesn't name any. Probably because for any association he could raise, Obama could see him and raise him one. Ayers? I'll see your Ayers and raise you a Keating. Rev. Wright? I'll see your Wright and raise you a Hagee.
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Sarah Palin has had executive experience-- and the White House is the executive branch of government. We don't have to judge her by her rhetoric because she has a record.
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First, being president is not like being governor of New York or California, much less like being governor of Alaska. And what kind of record does she have? Abuse of power? Cheating the state so her kids can travel? Feeling out the librarian on banning books? And, of course, McCain doesn't have executive experience either.
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We don't know what Barack Obama will actually do because he has actually done very little for which he was personally accountable. Even as a state legislator, he voted "present" innumerable times instead of taking a stand one way or the other on tough issues.
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This is ridiculous. First, he didn't vote present innumerable times. He did so 129 times, 3 percent of his votes. Second, it's apparently a common practice in the Illinois legislature, and his record in this respect isn't unusual.
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He is also part of the mess in Washington, not only with numerous earmarks, but also as the Senate's second largest recipient of money from Fannie Mae, and someone whose campaign has this year sought the advice of disgraced former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, who was at the heart of the subprime crisis.
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He talked with Raines once, on the phone. McCain's chief strategist was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae who was still taking money from them as late as this past summer.
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One reason of course is that Senator Obama is ideologically much closer to the views of the media than is Governor Palin. But there is more than that. There are other conservative politicians who do not evoke such anger, spite and hate.
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The old canard about the liberal media? Palin as outsider? This is all just ridiculous. People are curious about Palin because, by and large, they've never heard of her before. So of course the media is going to try to give the public more information about her. Further down, he repeats the claim of 'gotcha' questions. Asking somebody what newspapers they read, or to name a SCOTUS decision they disagree with is not a 'gotcha' question. That's a softball, a question any political candidate ought to have a pat answer to.
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More than that, her whole life has been outside the realm familiar to the intelligentsia of the media. She didn't go to the big-name colleges and imbibe the heady atmosphere that leaves so many feeling that they are special folks. She doesn't talk the way they talk or think the way they think.
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You mean she can't discuss policy on an adult level because she's never thought about it before and doesn't even have the vocabulary? Certainly not being a Harvard grad doesn't mean you're not smart, or not qualified to be vice-president. But the right has been trying to spin it as a positive thing, and I just don't see why that's the case. And it's not simply that she doesn't talk the way those big-name college grads talk. It's that she obviously hasn't thought much, if at all, about any national issues. Even her attempt to try and build a pipeline across Alaska has so far been unsuccessful.
Finally, I don't understand why Palin is supposed to represent the real America. Real americans come in all colors and opinions, and singling out a single subculture as being somehow 'really American' at best smacks of McCarthyism, bigotry, and parochialism. It's not like there's something special about being from Alaska that makes you a good person. I, living inside the Beltway, and my friend Katie the Socialist, and Adam the Media Executive, are just as much Americans as Joe the Plumber and Jessica the Farmer and Mike the Cop. And saying otherwise is distinctly un-American.