A Brief History…

UPDATE # 2: Last year, she was much more qualified. I wonder what happened?

In Alaska, Palin is challenging the dominant, sometimes corrupting, role of oil companies in the state’s political culture. “The public has put a lot of faith in us,” says Palin during a meeting with lawmakers in her downtown Anchorage office, where—as if to drive the point home—the giant letters on the side of the ConocoPhillips skyscraper fill an entire wall of windows. “They’re saying, ‘Here’s your shot, clean it up’.” For Palin, that has meant tackling the cozy relationship between the state’s political elite and the energy industry that provides 85 percent of Alaska’s tax revenues—and distancing herself from fellow Republicans, including the state’s senior U.S. senator, Ted Stevens, whose home was recently searched by FBI agents looking for evidence in an ongoing corruption investigation. (Stevens has denied any wrongdoing.) But even as she tackles Big Oil’s power, Palin has transformed her own family’s connections to the industry into a political advantage. Her husband, Todd, is a longtime employee of BP, but, as Palin points out, the “First Dude” is a blue-collar “sloper,” a fieldworker on the North Slope, a cherished occupation in the state. “He’s not in London making the decisions whether to build a gas line.”

In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Palin said it’s time for Alaska to “grow up” and end its reliance on pork-barrel spending. Shortly after taking office, Palin canceled funding for the “Bridge to Nowhere,” a $330 million project that Stevens helped champion in Congress. The bridge, which would have linked the town of Ketchikan to an island airport, had come to symbolize Alaska’s dependence on federal handouts. Rather than relying on such largesse, says Palin, she wants to prove Alaska can pay its own way, developing its huge energy wealth in ways that are “politically and environmentally clean.”

Well, that was then and this is now. Even the New York Times has changed its mind:

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President?… Or where is it written that mere representatives aren’t qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens?… Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial?… Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy…. What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen…. Why shouldn’t a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?… [T]he indispensable credential for a Woman Who [sic] is the same as for a Man Who [sic] – one who helps the ticket.

That, of course, was from 1984.

ORIGINAL POST
A new development has appeared in the presidential campaign. Barack Obama has started to compare his qualifications for office to those of Sarah Palin. This is amazing. It began here. A left wing blog called Talk Left was running a pool on how long before Sarah Palin withdraws as a candidate for VP. The deluge of leftist slime seems to them to be too much for her to resist. I agree that it is disgusting but the left has seemingly transferred its hate of George Bush over to Sarah. Why ? Here is one opinion. A bit whimsical but with a good insight into the truth.

But she’s not a Democrat, which despite her va-va-va-voom appearance, means she’s not really a woman, which is one of the reasons we’ve spent the past four days since McCain unveiled her trying to tear her limb from limb. Just because she’s the governor of a state sandwiched between two obscure and unimportant countries, Canada and Russia, and spent more time in her first five minutes visiting American troops in Iraq than Evita Barry did during his entire Rainbow Tour, what could she possibly know about foreign policy? It’s not like she’s John Edwards or something.

But sometimes the mask slips and you can see — whoops! — how much we hate you.

The new development is that Obama, himself, cannot resist the temptation to join the fray. He is supposed to be the presidential nominee, far above the concerns of a vice-president, which everybody knows doesn’t really matter. Why is he inserting himself, and even comparing himself, to her ? He was being interviewed on CNN, a friendly venue, when this revealing exchange took place.

COOPER: And, Senator Obama, my final question — your — some of your Republican critics have said you don’t have the experience to handle a situation like this. They in fact have said that Governor Palin has more executive experience, as mayor of a small town and as governor of a big state of Alaska. What’s your response?

So, I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute, I think, has been made clear over the last couple of years. And, certainly, in terms of the legislation that I passed just dealing with this issue post-Katrina of how we handle emergency management, the fact that many of my recommendations were adopted and are being put in place as we speak, I think, indicates the degree to which we can provide the kinds of support and good service that the American people expect.

Whaaat ?

Just for the record, Alaska’s FY2008 operating budget is $11.2 billion, and the state employs approximately 15,000 people. Those certainly aren’t huge numbers in federal terms, but they’re a good bit bigger than the Obama campaign.

What is he thinking off ? Maybe this. He has lost his cool and this will defeat him if nothing else will. He feels it’s necessary to lie about the qualifications of the vice-presidential nominee. Why ? Because she threatens him. The race has turned upside down.

What ever happened to Joe Biden ?

UPDATE: Here is a piece by an Alaskan about Sarah and her record as governor.

And here is “Sarah America” on energy.

UPDATE #2: My God ! a sensible Palin story from the MSM. I’ve been to Wasilla and it is actually a beautiful, upscale suburb of Anchorage. It should have become the Alaska capital in an initiative that failed in 1994, just before one of my visits to the state. It is ridiculous to have the capital at Juneau, which is hundreds of miles from the major population areas of the state. You cannot even get to Juneau by land ! The problem is the rivalry between Fairbanks and Anchorage. The Fairbanks voters will never allow the capital to move to Anchorage. A move to Wasilla, which is about 30 miles north of Anchorage and on the main highway to Fairbanks, was defeated in 1994. I expect that voters will learn a lot more about Alaska in the next few months.

UPDATE: Now she is a computer hacker, except it seems to have been completely legal. Cool !

The political left has gone crazy. Some segments have always been a bit that way but Sarah Palin seems to have tipped most of them over the edge. The first reaction, which was shared by a number of inside-the-beltway dinosaurs of both parties, was that McCain must have been desperate or senile to have chosen her. The inexperience argument seems a bit odd given the lack of experience of the candidate that the Democrats have chosen this year. Still, it has been tried. Some Democrats kept their heads and advised calm. Even they had trouble understanding the situation.

Third, and most important, voters don’t need our help to figure this out. In the end, they’ll be the best and toughest judge of whether or not Sarah Palin is ready. Back in 1988, the Dukakis campaign actually ran an ad against Dan Quayle. It didn’t work, and wasn’t necessary. In any case, Quayle had only himself to blame for falling flat on the national stage. By straining so hard to compare himself to JFK on the campaign trail, he practically wrote Bentsen’s famous line for him.

Notice no mention of how that 1988 election turned out.

The netroots, on the other hand went nuts. That’s why we call them nutroots.

Washington Monthly, a left wing magazine site that was run by Kevin Drum the past few years, has become a slightly less obscene DailyKos since Kevin left. They are still out of control. The entire site, the past 48 hours, has been hysteria nonstop. That is only a sample.

The result may not be pretty for Obama. This frenzy of anti-woman sentiment has caused one Hillary supporter to switch and that may be just the beginning. One accusation has been that the choice of Sarah was a crude play for the female vote. I don’t think so. I think McCain really sees some of his own instincts in her. He also may realize that it is time to move on to the next generation of Republican leaders. However, the furious and demeaning reaction to her pick may accomplish just that purpose.

Keep it up nutroots!

The Anchoress has the latest knockdowns on rumors, which have spread even to the London papers. I can’t imagine this will help Obama.