McCain's Really Stretching Here

Tonight on NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams asked Senator McCain whether Sarah Palin was really the best person to be, literally, a heartbeat away from the presidency. I tried to embed the video, it's at about 3:40, but ran into some glitches with blogspot. Try the link to Nightly News above. The gist of McCain's answer was that Palin's had executive experience as governor, mayor, city council member, and in the PTA.

Honestly. How big can the PTA even BE in a town of 4,000 residents (assuming she was on PTA around 1990)? For that matter, city council of a town that's scarcely bigger than my local high school? If you have to reach this far, the argument can't be very good.

More On Inexperience and Judgement

John McCain’s 2008 Presidential campaign has existed longer than Sarah Palin has been Governor of Alaska. McCain formed his 2008 Presidential exploratory committee in November 2006. Sarah Palin was inaugurated as Alaska Governor in December 2006. Seriously, I know a couple of bright, accomplished PTA moms with advanced degrees (Donna, Sharon, Nicole, you know who you are) who might be as qualified as Sarah Palin.

McCain's campaign slogan "Country First?" Is he putting his country first by choosing a completely inexperienced #2 as a political gimmick? Poor judgement, party before country, more of the same, John McCain.

Just For Fun

Sarah Palin's baby son, Trig Paxson Van Palin -- were you wondering about the "Van?" Wonder no more. It's an homage to the rock band Van Halen. Get it? Van Palin, Van Halen?

Sarah Palin

I just finished watching Sarah Palin's speech. She is beautiful and articulate. She will remind a lot of us of the soccer mom down the street, except that she reportedly wakes up at 3 am to hunt moose (at least when she was a kid).

According to CNN, Palin was on the city council of Wasilla, AK (pop 5,470 in 2000) from 1992-1996, then mayor from 1996-2002. She's been governor of Alaska since 2006. (Note: there were 10,000 people at the speech she gave to indroduce herself today!)

Not yet mentioned on CNN (though CNN.com devoted a paragraph to it): Palin is under bipartisan investigation for firing a state official, Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, for refusing to fire Palin's former brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, who was locked in a child-custody dispute with Palin's sister.

My initial take:
1. If elected, this person will be a 72-year-old-man-with-a-history-of-cancer away from being president. She has less than two years of experience at the state level, none at the federal level, and no foreign policy experience whatsoever.

2. She was chosen because she was a woman. That's where the similarity ends. Hillary supporters, please think about this: you love Hillary not just because she is a woman but because she is a highly qualified woman and because of what she stands for and stands up for. This woman is neither, and the McCain campaign is trying to manipulate you. What Hillary stands for and believes in: universal health care, equal pay, abortion rights, and so forth, McCain-Palin will speak against, fight against, vote against, and veto. McCain will probably appoint three judges to the supreme court while in office. If you never read my first blog post, Why No Hillary Supporter Should Vote For McCain, please, please, take a look before you vote for him out of anger and disgust over the Democratic primary.

Addendum: For a better-written commentary, see Paul Begala on CNN.com today. Just another reminder of why I'm a doctor and not a writer or a politician.

Would McCain Let Alleged Terrorists Buy Guns?

From Newsweek:

John McCain portrays himself as a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights. But does that extend to gun rights for suspected terrorists? His campaign won't say where he stands on a bill to eliminate a gun-control loophole that even the Bush administration wants closed: a gap in federal law that inhibits the government from stopping people on terrorist watch lists from buying guns. The bill was inspired by an official audit covering a five-month period in 2004 which found that, because of the loophole, the Feds had to greenlight 35 out of 44 cases where a gun buyer was on a terrorist watch list. One group opposed to closing the loophole is the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun manufacturers' trade association. Until this spring, one of its congressional lobbyists was Randy Scheunemann, now a top McCain campaign adviser on foreign policy.

I've said it again and again. You can't make this stuff up.

Lobbyist for Georgia Writes McCain's Foreign Policy

Quoting from the Washington Post today:

Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.

The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

This came up in a blog post during lobbyist week. Right and wrong in Georgia aside, how is McCain supposed to come up with a credible foreign policy if it's written by people who are STILL being paid to lobby for places like Georgia?

Why You Shouldn't Vote For McCain Unless You're In The Top 1% After-Tax Income

This one's a quicky. The graphic shows how your after-tax income will change, percentage-wise, depending on your income percentile, according to tax proposals as described by each respective campaign. Blue is Obama, red is McCain.

Blue/Obama: Highest increase to lowest two quartiles, and some decrease to the top 1% earners.

Red/McCain: Lowest increase to lowest quartile income. Largest percent increase to the top 0.1% earners in the country. In other words, McCain and his CEO cronies.

Happy Birthday Barack!