The essence of McCain distilled

Feed, the Live ^ | Oct. 17, 2008 | Posted by Mike

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

He wasn’t espousing a conspiracy theory, GHWB was head of the CIA, the american equivilent of MI-6, which is known over here colloquially as the ‘secret service’...

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

As for Sarah, I do think she could be president someday, I just don’t think she is ready, nor is BO.

The difference between Gov. Palin and Sen. Obama is that

• Palin has executive experience at the same level that Obama has legislative experience - and Obama notoriously voted "present," whereas if an executive tries to do that their organization suffers for it. We should know from our experience of the Clinton Administration exactly what it is like to have an irresponsible, blame-shifting POTUS.

• Palin didn't arrive in the governor's office with a plan to campaign for POTUS in her hip pocket.

• Palin doesn't have associations, let alone alliances, with people who properly are political embarrassments.

• Palin took on the local political establishment, whereas Obama fit right in with the Chicago machine.

• Palin isn't running for POTUS, she is running for VP. VP is to POTUS as "prince" is to "king" - except that kings always die in office, and presidents only occasionally do. The VP is the adopted, not natural, heir of the POTUS.

The nomination of Palin for VP is no argument for the Obama/Biden ticket, and wouldn't be even if you thought that Biden actually was a foreign policy expert. Because it is Obama who is the top of the ticket, and there is no argument that Obama would be a better POTUS than Palin would be.

Before the Palin nomination I actually advocated for a VP selection who would have had very weak paper credentials - I wanted a black conservative, probably an Iraq war veteran officer. That would have had the signal political virtue of installing in the campaign someone who had no reason to walk on eggs around the race issue, and therefore would be able and eager to take on Obama. If you think Palin has given Obama trouble, a black conservative would have tied him in knots.

[Senator Goldwater]

I agree. McCain has had a very good week getting himself across, and the three things that come to mind — the rally admonition, Letterman and the black tie roast should show America a very admirable side to his character, if they didn’t already know about it about him.

[StAntKnee]

Policies? You dig policies?

Think character. Think Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Reagan. It’s not about policy. Otherwise we’d have had Adalai over Ike.

Go hide your policies in a shady place. I’ll take character any day.

[StAntKnee]

Thanks for a wonderful summary.

Oughta be a post of its own.

Probably is, huh?