Reason's 2008 Live Convention Coverage
Palin: Long on 'tude, Short on Specifics
Nick Gillespie | September 3, 2008, 11:24pm
As an instance of political theater, I think just about anybody would agree that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's speech was pretty impressive. As Nina Easton of Fortune put it (somewhat regretfully) on Fox News Channel, "It was a home run in the first inning." It was a well-delivered, red-meat speech, chock full o' attacks on Barack Obama and Democrats in general.
For me, the lacuna at the heart of it all, a gigantic prolapsed valve big enough to punch your fist through, was the inability of the GOP to spell out exactly what John McCain's great legislative accomplishments were/are. Palin kept intoning that McCain was a great American, apart form the torture he endured during the Vietnam War. But she wouldn't quite spell out what his massive successes were. McCain-Feingold? Eh, not exactly. Earmark reform? Mebbe (except for the fact that Alaska pulls in much more dough than it sends to D.C.). He was against the Medicare prescription drug benefit—a totally awful and unnecessary expansion of the welfare state. But she didn't call that out (which makes sense, given that a Republican president pushed the bejeezus out of it all and it seemed like the average age in the RNC hall was about 70 years old).
I've got to admit that, as someone who doesn't care for Dem-Rep politics, I like Palin as a character. She's on a totally different script than any of us are used to; she's white trash in the same way Angelina Jolie is (and no wonder she scares the hell out of so many people). I want to think there's some latent libertarianism in her shtick, though I'm troubled by her bullshit backtracking on earmarks, the Bridge To Nowhere, you name it.
But in the end, the VP doesn't matter. Sen. Joe Biden is awful on virtually every level—he's a drug warrior to the max and a situational hawk and peacenik. It's the people at the top of the ticket who cause the most problems. And while I worry about Obama's willingness to raise taxes, increase regulations, and wage indiscriminate wars (that a Democratic Congress will support, as they did under Bill Clinton), I worry just as much about someone like John McCain, who for all the reasons Matt Welch details in his indispensable book details, who would be just as rotten.
joe | September 4, 2008, 11:24am | #
If I'm to be scared of a President Palin in the event of McCain's incapacity, why wouldn't I be equally scared of President Obama?
Perhaps because Obama has meaningful experience and considerable accomplishments in the field of foreign policy?
The Lugar-Obama Cooperative Threat Reduction.
Introduced by Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Dick Lugar and Sen. Tom Coburn.
First introduced in November 2005 and enacted in 2007, this bill expanded upon the successful Nunn-Lugar threat reduction, which helped secure weapons of mass destruction and related infrastructure in former Soviet Union states.
Lugar-Obama expanded this nonproliferation program to conventional weapons -- including shoulder-fired rockets and land mines.
Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act
This law helped specify US policy toward the Congo, and states that the US should work with other donor nations to increase international contributions to the African nation.
The bill marked the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor. Following this legislation's passage, Obama toured Africa, traveling to South Africa, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad. He spoke forcefully against ethnic rivalries and political corruption in Kenya.
Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007
Introduced by Obama, this binding act would stop the planned troop increase of 21,500 in Iraq, and would also begin a phased redeployment of troops from Iraq with the goal of removing all combat forces by March 31, 2008.
Amendments to the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill
Obama worked with Sen. Kit Bond to limit, through this bill, the Pentagon’s use of personality disorder discharges in the FY 2008 Defense Authorization bill.
This provision would add additional safeguards to discharge procedures and require a thorough review by the Government Accountability Office. This followed news reports that the Pentagon inappropriately used these procedures to discharge service members with service-connected psychological injuries.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Threat Reduction provision
Working with Sen. Hagel and Rep. Adam Schiff, Obama authored this provision, which would require the president to develop a comprehensive plan for ensuring that all nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material at vulnerable sites around the world are secure by 2012 from the threats that terrorists have shown they can pose.
Or, perhaps, "because he was opposed to the Iraq War from the beginning, and to similar wars, while she declared it to be a Mission from Gawd" will cover it.
