The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?
So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him.
Well, duh. I said this the week Palin was chosen. I’ll say it again:
Sarah Palin as Vice President is a cravenly laughable political stunt. It’s wedge politics as usual. Hearing her snide jabs at Barack Obama in her RNC speech proved to me that Sarah Palin represents nothing more than the same divisive, anything-goes, culture-wars, red vs blue, "War On Christmas," fear-based, Karl Rove-style politics of destruction we've lived with for the past eight years.
That's not small town America, that's just more of the same. I’m sick of the national narrative being set by troglodytes like Limbaugh and O’Reilly, who will try to spin a “lipstick on a pig” colloquialism into a smear on the Democratic candidate because campaign operatives think it’s a good power play. You like playing games like that? Then vote for McCain-Palin. Because that’s what you’re gonna get--for four whole years.
It’s irresponsible, party-before-country politics as usual. If you’ve enjoyed Monica Goodling at the Dept. of Justice and Lurita Doan at the GSA, then you will love McCain-Palin.
Sullivan goes on:
And then, because he could see he was going to lose, ten days ago, he threw caution to the wind and with no vetting whatsoever, picked a woman who, by her decision to endure her own eight-month pregnancy of a Down Syndrome child in public, that he was going to reignite the culture war as a last stand against Obama. That's all that is happening right now: a massive bump in the enthusiasm of the Christianist base. This is pure Rove.
Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.
There you have it folks. There’s one ticket that’s offering a new direction for the country and a new conversation with the American people. There’s another ticket that’s offering the same divisive “War On Christmas” crap we’ve had for the past eight years.
The choice is clear.
