Palin and the VP debate

A lifelong conservative Republican friend decided she couldn't vote for McCain after he picked Palin as his running mate. She has no love for Obama, but from her perspective at least Biden could hold down the fort if something happened to Obama. Palin can't, my friend concluded, and further concluded that McCain's picking Palin revealed a deep flaw in McCain.

I'm not a big Obama fan either. But I understand why Palin did so much better in this debate than she did in the lengthy interviews: the GOP demanded a debate structure that limited answers to 2 minutes--to sound bites she could memorize. Same Palin--just different rules.

This goes beyond all the partisan blather in this forum on both sides. And it goes beyond the lies and exaggerations both Biden and Palin deployed (you can see a comprehensive list on FactCheck.org).

Palin is not up to the job, and it should be obvious to anyone who watched both the interviews and this debate. As one commentator pointed out, she often didn't understand the question in the first place.

I'm not saying she's stupid. But at this point she's not prepared to run the United States of America. I'd say this if she were a Democrat. By age 46 she would have some grasp of world affairs and how the economy works if she had the slightest interest in these things. She just doesn't. I admire how she took on her own party's establishment in Alaska, but that's not enough.

And all the talk about how she's more prepared than Obama is just whistling past the graveyard. Go back and watch the first debate between Obama and McCain. I don't agree with him about a lot of things, but he obviously has what it takes to be president, as does Biden.

I was once a liberal Republican--yes, such people existed in large numbers back in the 50s. Now only a handful are left in the GOP, drowned out by chanting loons who are conservatives in name only. I miss the party of responsible conservative people like Eisenhower, who established the national highway system. Today's Republicans would brand him a So-shul-ist for having done so.

And now my former party gives me a VP nominee who falls short of the mark--breathtakingly so.

What has the GOP come to?

Communism is ownership of business by government. What do you call ownership of government by business? Whatever it is, that's what the GOP now stands for.

This economic fiasco isn't completely the GOP's fault--but it is mostly. I only hope the GOP will be able to reform itself so it actually represents actually conservative Americans again.