No offense to you Palin fans...

As I wander weak and weary through my house, I wandered through a room where several of my children were watching the recent Get Smart DVD. "That's the Lincoln Memorial," I said. "It's not important," was one response. You parents know. They get to this age where the only really important things in life are Beyonce and Twilight.

And then I thought of Sarah Palin.

Bush Doctrine, NAFTA? Name a newspaper, any newspaper, even a conservative one. A Supreme Court decision other than Roe vs. Wade you disagree with? What does Sarkozy's voice really sound like?

Not important... until you run for Vice President. "Yah, but the great thing about America is that you only have to be popular to be President. You betcha."

SNL: Bush endorses McCain and Palin

Life is going to be so dull after the election :-)

Colin Powell endorces Obama

As most of you will already know, Colin Powell thoughtfully endorsed Obama this morning on Meet the Press. You may not agree with his assessments, but his measured and thoughtful analysis is what we need more of in politics. What we don't need is the clearly partisan approach of the Keith Olbermanns, Rush Limbaughs, Bill Maher's, Bill O'Reilly's, etc. Powell is not objective--no one is. But this fair weighing of both sides is sorely lacking these days.

I firmly believe his perspective on America in general is where the country is headed, whether one agrees or not, whether Obama is elected or not.

Here's the video of his endorsement:



By the way, I don't know Obama, but once again someone who does puts to rest the attempt to defeat Obama by casting doubt on his character. If you disagree with Obama's positions more than you disagree with McCain's positions, vote against him. Or better, if you agree with McCain's positions more than you agree with Obama's, vote for him.

But don't vote because of some underhanded email, letter, or TV ad rumor against either candidate. They are aimed at the weak of mind. Don't be weak of mind.

Palin Did OK...

Palin did OK last night. Unlike a lot of others, I'm not surprised. She may be inexperienced on things like foreign policy and judicial precedent, but she's not stupid. And there's a big difference between a debate where you pretty much know what questions are going to get asked and an interview where someone might ask you random questions out of the blue--like your least favorite Supreme Court decision or what newspapers you read to get your information.

At the same time, last week left me thinking that what they have been considering a strength of Palin--I'm not a Washington insider--in her case is a significant weakness. She's not had her head in Washington at all. She does not know American judicial history nor has she been paying careful attention to the foreign policy decisions of the last 7 years.

When the "Bush doctrine" was born, she was the mayor of a middle sized town on the outposts of America, just recently having been a hockey mom. And why would she know American judicial history? She was a perky journalism major.

So she's smart. She's a quick study. But it no surprise that her answers usually stay on the level of general sentiments rather than specifics. She's learning the specifics on the fly.

Palin's Greatest Hits

Here's a litany of Palin on Palin put together by Keith Obermann. She may shine tomorrow night, but I feel sorry for her today.



Then here is Saturday Night Live's parody:

First Swift Boat Ad: Obama on Sex Education

I don't know whether I'll do this much, but I'm hoping that the blogosphere will K-O the kind of nonsense ads that usually accompany a presidential election. I passed over the "lipstick on a pig" debate, which I found absurd and falsely indignant. Obama was clearly talking about McCain's policies, not Palin. McCain himself, indeed Dick Cheney, has used the expression.

And yes, the audience may very well have laughed because of Palin's "lipstick on a pitbull" comment in her speech. I take the fact that she didn't break down and cry because of the hurtfulness of the comment shows that she's "woman" enough to play with the big dogs. If she couldn't handle someone thinking of her views as pigish, then she's not strong enough to be a VP candidate... she is. So this one is for the trash. If the fact that people laughed really hurt you, then you may not be mature enough to listen to politics and should go back to your Dr. Seuss books.

But more significant is the attack ad the McCain campaign is putting out claiming that Obama supported "comprehensive" sex ed in Kindergarten in Illinois and that this is the only education legislation he has ever supported. This article points out how misleading this ad is. Of course both sides are spinning out distortions and I personally reserve judgment on these sorts of rumors about both sides until I have further information.

On this one, "comprehensive" meant through high school. All that Kindergarteners would have learned--and the bill never even went to a vote--is how to resist individuals who might try to touch you in inappropriate places. The ad thus plays into the usual conservative Christian machine that inevitably makes whoever the Democratic candidate is into the anti-Christ.

There are issues where evangelical Christians will side with McCain over Obama, but I don't think education should be one of them. On the matter of education, I have already concluded that Obama is the better candidate. I might add that the very journal that the attack add quotes critiquing Obama on one point, considers McCain a "do nothing" candidate on education.

Disappointed with Keith Obermann

Generally, I have enjoyed watching the Keith Obermann hour on MSNBC. He is a little over the top sometimes on the "liberal" side, but no more than O'Reilly or Limbaugh are on the "conservative" side. I have often enjoyed his skewers, although his biases are quite clear.

Last night, though, I thought he continued down the path of backfire by making fun of the fact that Sarah Palin used to attend an Assemblies of God church. Now I imagine most of his audience (and surely he knows most of who's watching) would be with him. He treated tongues speaking as weirdo fanatic.

The news all yesterday was taking a clip out of context in which she prayed for American leaders to know God's will in Iraq--what's wrong with that? Sure, she no doubt thinks she has more than a hunch of what that is. But I see nothing wrong with the prayer.

In short, the news media that play up this sort of stuff are only solidifying the evangelical vote behind McCain and ticking off a lot of people against them in the process. In short, it's STUPID to do. You won't get any "the elite media has a liberal bias" from me. FOX News has a psycho-conservative bias and they're the media too. Limbaugh is the media too.

But those making fun of Palin and making a big deal out of this clip don't have a clue what they're doing. They're going to get lambasted again.

Frankly, I do have serious fears about evangelicals of the Bush/Palin stripe integrating their faith with their politics on a microlevel. It's the same kind of reaction I have had here when I've heard devotionals where a psychology or history or whatever professor here tries to integrate their faith on a microlevel with their discipline. They are integrating a Sunday School level faith with a doctoral level knowledge of their discipline.

The result is not a little strange and often it makes them look stupid as a psychologist, historian, or whatever. It's for this reason that places like Calvin College expend a lot of effort so their faculty are integrating faith with a deep knowledge with their disicpline. More frequently a prof. just rips a verse way out of context with no clue what it meant and then relates it strangely to some concept from their discipline. If I think most pastors have little sense of what the Bible really meant, you can imagine my reaction to other professors.

And so when someone like Palin brings her Sunday School faith to bear on international politics--that's a really scary thing to me. In most cases, I prefer a person with a Christlike heart in office with a head filled more with sound political judgment. Those who are slaves to the civil religion that permeates the evangelical community end up making really bad decisions, like, for example, ignoring the wise counsel of theological consensus (set out by Augustine 1600 years ago) and launching pre-emptive wars on countries that, oops, turn out not to be the threat they thought they were.

Palin's Speech Last Night

I was working on classes last night and missed the live performance, but read through the transcript of Sarah Palin's speech this morning (as well as some excerpts from Guliani's). They struck me as pretty effective for motivating the party base.

For Guliani it was lack of executive experience for Obama and absence of any distinguishing legislation in the Senate.

For Palin it was "look, I'm a Dobson mother" and "Obama never mentioned victory once except in reference to his own campaign."

It seems to me the "no experience" and "my son's going off to Iraq next week" rhetoric works really well with the 60+ and remaining WW2 generation. Drill baby drill works with the business crowd. And holding the baby, I'm a hockey mom, works with the Dobson crowd. I did think it was a little over the top when they handed her the AK47 for the NRA crowd (just kidding).

I find Guliani's speech a more substantive attack. Other than pointing out McCain's experience, which is certainly noteworthy, Palin's speech seemed to me more "posing for pictures with the base" than anything else.

On the other hand, I think most Americans will find the raking over the coals of Palin's personal life irritating. The kind of people that are going for Obama don't like that sort of stuff, although I suspect the Clinton crowd does. In fact, the people going for Obama will find both speeches the same old polarizing approach to politics they are tired of.

The "clinging to guns and religion" quote got some air last night. I find that irritating, because the statement bears serious discussion. I have yet to see those who don't like it actually address the question of whether it has any truth to it or not. Rather, the response has been--"Are you going to let him say that about you! Let's go shoot him in the name of God!"

What did you think?