Is being a constitutional law professor a liability for a President?

Sarah Palin thinks so.

 In these volatile times when we are a nation at war, now more than ever is when we need a commander-in-chief, not a constitutional law professor lecturing us from a lectern.

This looks like anti-intellectualism to me. Dang those pointy-headed academics.

Sarah Palin's Debate Flow Chart

HT: Debbie Albury.

And the winner of Thursday's debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin is...

Tina Fey. You betcha!

Fact-check on some of the anti-Palin material

I should point out here that these attacks on Palin haven't actually come from the Obama campaign. Someone posted a Vallicella post on Palin which directed me to factcheck.org.

The rumors about Palin are an understandable reaction to the possibility of having someone close to the Presidency who is unknown to the general public and is seen as extreme in some ways. Who she is is important. Is her campaign persona genuine? Or is she trying to appear to be something she is not. America wants to know, and should want to know.

It's my view that the Palin pick is a highly dubious pick for the reasons I gave earlier, which do not in any way rely on the truth of any of these speculations.

Palin can do herself a world of good by putting an end to the boasting about her stand on the Bridge to Nowhere and admitting quite honestly that she is a relatively new convert to the McCain anti-earmark gospel. In doing so, she needs to admit that her little one-liner about the bridge is highly misleading.

The e-mail mentioned by Factcheck from Anne Kilkenny raises some other issues concerning her leadership style which, while perhaps less sensational, are nonetheless important to the process of the vetting of Sarah Palin by our country.

Why I Don't Want Sarah Palin in the Vice-Presidency

Perhaps the best way for me to sum up my discussions concerning Sarah Palin would be this. I happen to be a member of the Democratic party and an Obama supporter. There are a number of reasons that I have for this: I am skeptical of trickle-down economics, as important as private compassion is I think it needs to not stop when we get to the halls of government, I believe that invasions of foreign countries require justification we did not come anywhere near to meeting in our war with Iraq (though we did, I think, meet it in Afghanistan), I do think we should move away from fossil fuels sooner rather than later. I suspect that the mainstream Republican understanding of conservatism is to give large corporations and their CEOs whatever they want, which is hardly conservatism. On cultural issues I'm no fan of abortion but recognize some complexities in the issue and have some doubts about bringing the long arm of the law down on it. Though I think if I had a magic wand and could make Roe v. Wade go away I would wave it. I find the increased concentration of governmental power in the hands of the executive branch in response to an "emergency" created by 9/11 (the so-called "unitary executive) extremely troubling and the use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques which I would call torture to be unconscionable. I believe in the separation of church and state, though some hyper-sensitive ways of applying that separation are, in my mind silly. But I don't want a great battle for a Christian America that never existed. I also find the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush Administration unacceptable.

Overall, I'm just more comfortable in the Democratic party than in the Republican. But suppse I were a Republican, and perhaps one that fervently desired and expected that Roe v. Wade be overturned. Would I be happy with the Palin pick. Many people think she is the greatest thing since Ronald Reagan.

The answer is, that were I a Republican I would be troubled for my own party. First, apparently party leaders are not leaving the vice-Presidential choice to the nominee, they are telling him that he may not nominate certain people like Lieberman or Ridge. Second, we are told that this person has been thoroughly "vetted" but we have no idea what that "vetting" amounts to. Palin is unknown to most Americans and they would like to know what she is like. She makes good emotional connections with people, but so far there are serious problems with her background, she gives scripted responses to questions on issues, she is under investigation for misconduct as a governor, and makes dishonest statements about her record. Even if this pick proves effective for the campaign, it could prove disastrous for governance, especially if she has to supplant the elderly McCain in the highest office of the land.

Evasion Central, Alaskan Headquarters

I did not have earmark relations with that bridge, to nowhere.

See this Youtube video. I'm sorry, but this doesn't pass the smell test.

Does Lying Matter?

"I said thanks, but no thanks, to the bridge to nowhere."

Does anyone really care that this statement is exceedingly misleading at best and a bald-faced lie at worst. I think the latter is closer to the mark.

But does this matter? Should we care? Now telling me all the lies you think the Obamacrats might have told doesn't answer the question. That just gives us more lies to either care, or not care about.

Did it matter when Clinton lied? Should we give up on expecting our candidates to be truthful?

Rebuttals to anti-Palin claims

To be fair, this is a rebuttal page to the anti-Palin rumors that have gotten about. It will take some effort to sort out all the facts on this sort of thing.

Is Palin a Christian Reconstructionist

I've been reading Daily Kos stuff, which is, after all Daily Kos, and so they often aren't very good at distinguishing various strands of what has come to be known as the Religious Right. In their minds, Campus Crusade, and James Dobson, and ID, and Christian Reconstructionism all smush together, and that really weakens their case when they talk about this sort of thing. There may be bones to pick with all of them, but they are different entities.

However, this Christian Reconstructionist is praying for McCain to die so Palin can run the country. Wow. I have the suspicion that defending herself against the charge of right-wing Christian extremism will probably be the most critical challenge for candidate Palin.

Limbaugh and Hannity on the Palin choice

Rush Limbaugh said that McCain's choice of Sarah Palin shows him to be a true maverick. That is just before he made the ludicrously sexist comment "We got the babe on our ticket." (So much for shattering any glass ceilings.) Sean Hannity interviews Karl Rove as the "architect" of the Palin selection. Both can't be right. Rove is the Republican party establisment, tied to George W. Bush. Doing what Rove wants is precisely not to be a maverick in today's Republican party. It is kowtowing to the "architect" of the dirty anti-McCain attacks that derailed his own bid for the Presidency in 2000.

If Palin was Rove's choice, then this shows that McCain is under the thumb of the Bush-Cheney wing of the party. His maverick status is forfeited.

Nor would the ascendancy of Palin to the Vice-Presidency shatter any glass ceilings. Palin didn't get the votes necessary to be nominated, the way Hillary Clinton nearly did. She got hand-picked by the Republican establishment. The Vice-President has as much of a job as the president permits him or her to have. John Garner, FDR's VP, said that job was worth a cup of warm spit. Only he didn't say spit, he said something else.

Comparing Palin's qualifications to Obama's is also absurd, at least at this point. Obama has executed a primary campaign, taken on formidable opponents within his own party, won the support of the Clintons for his general election campaign, and developed policy positions on the issues facing the President. He has also selected a running-mate. So we've seen him in action making presidential-type decisions.

In the coming weeks we shall see if Palin is capable of developing policy positions on the major issues of our time. Obama has chosen Biden, someone who is not only capable of assuming the presidency should Obama's heart stop beating, but someone capable of posing tough questions concerning the President's policies. Someone who will not be a rubber-stamp and a yes-man. The ability to choose people is the best sign of qualification for the presidency.

Palin may prove me wrong. She may prove that she is able to think seriously and independently about national issues. But I think the chances of the are about the chances of my mastering the nuances of string theory in the next week or so.