Sarah Palin

John McCain did Sarah Palin a disservice. By choosing Palin to be his running mate, McCain thrust her onto the national stage without ANYWHERE NEAR enough preparation. Political campaigns can be tough business, especially if the campaign happens to be for the highest offices in the land. There have been lots of accusations that the media has been unfair to Palin, and I think some of that is true, but to give the media a little backing here, they were taken by surprise by McCain's choice, just as I'd say everyone who follows politics was. They had to play catch up, and if you recall, at first the McCain people tried to keep Palin away from direct contact with the media. The McCain people knew she wasn't ready to be Vice President of The United States, something many of them have made abundantly clear since the election. What McCain was thinking, I have no idea, but this choice alone disqualified him to be President. It showed an extreme lack of judgment on his part. Over time, lots of people have run for national office without much experience, but at least they knew they were going to run and had some time to prepare. McCain's pick also lacked any kind of political kick, as Alaska is a pretty reliably Republican state on the presidential level, and it only has three electoral votes.

Now I know Palin's supporters like to point to the fact (and it was a fact!) that she drew large crowds wherever she went, something McCain himself did not always do. Many people were curious, many were true Republican faithful who, out of their fealty to the Republican Party, would have supported an empty suit for Vice President. (Calm down Republicans, I was just going to say that there are Democrats who follow the same line of ...ah...reasoning? Is that the right word?) To be quite honest, there could not have been many Americans, be they Republicans, Democrats or Independents, who knew much of what Sarah Palin believed or had done in her life. I was one. When I heard about her being picked, I said, "Who?" And I follow politics!!! I was far from alone on this, and if I remember right, the people chosen to comment about her selection had to do some quick "googling" to get info for the television cameras and microphones. Further, I know her supporters like to point to the fact that the Republican ticket had overtaken the Democratic ticket in many polls in the aftermath of the Palin selection. Again, this is a fact, they aren't making this stuff up, but the storytellers also like to say, "If the economy hadn't tanked right after this......" But the problem with that logic is, the economy DID tank! (In fact, it had been in the process of tanking well before late August, early September of 2008.) The "if" scenario is irrelevant! Further, once the media started to get at Palin, she showed that she was ill prepared for the candidacy she had accepted.

Sometimes we seem to forget that these are REAL people appearing on our television screens during news coverage. I heard someone say that Palin should have turned down McCain's offer, and that's easy for us to say, but she is a REAL person, with a REAL ego. In an ideal world, Sarah Palin would have thoughtfully considered things and told McCain, "Thanks, but no thanks!" In the real world of 2008, she accepted. Think back in your own life, have you never taken on something, only to realize later that it was too much for you at that given moment in time?

I don't quite get all of the things she talked about in her announcement the other day. She seems to like playing the victim, and some folks have given her reason to do that, as Letterman's joke was over the line, but even then she couldn't leave it alone, insisting that he meant her younger daughter, if meaning the older daughter wasn't bad enough. Then she said something the other day to the effect that people had said some nasty things about her young son, who has Downs Syndrome. I've never heard about this, but it wouldn't surprise me that in a country of over 300 million people, that there are some horses asses who'd say anything. If she is going to EVER be involved in national politics, especially, she's going to have to learn to let a lot of the nasty stuff roll off of her back, and keep her mouth shut about it (and I don't mean that like what she seems to mean below in the next paragraph). She only gives it more play by responding to all of this crap, and there's been this constant air of controversy surrounding her since the election. This isn't the media's fault. What, the media shouldn't report her statements about the petty things people say about her or her family? To me, she relishes that victim role, TOO MUCH!

Which leads me to another statement she made the other day, something to the effect that there are people who want her to "sit down and shut up." Here again, who are these people? Identify them! What was the context, if they made such a statement? Here lately, I think some Republicans "may" (I'm NOT saying they did!) have indicated that she needs to "chill out!" The Republican Party has been battered lately by scandals, made worse by their own desire to continue 16th Century Puritanism in the 21st Century!

WORD HISTORY:
Queen-This goes back to Indo European "gwen," which meant "woman" and, some sources also say "wife." The Old Germanic branch of Indo European continued with "kwenon/kwoeniz," also with the meaning of "woman, wife." In Old English it was "cwen," with a long "e" sound. It too meant "woman, wife," but later it took on the more specific meaning of "wife of a king." Unlike its Germanic cousins on the Continent, English came to use this word for a woman ruler, or the wife of a ruler. The other Germanic languages use a feminine form of "king" to indicate the English meaning, and German has "Königin," which is just that, the "in" ending signifying the feminine form in German. (There was also a variant, the now archaic "quean," which simply meant "woman," but which took on derogatory meanings, like "hussy/prostitute," later in English.)