Sen. McCain, Gov. Palin: Birds of a Feather or Two Peas in a Pod?

ST. PAUL — A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s choice as running mate, called into question on Monday how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket.

On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.

Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.

--ELISABETH BUMILLER, New York Times 2 Sept. 2008

Ok, it's time for a little "straight talk" here. . .mind you now, this is not coming from any express .. . I'll leave the "fast" shoot from the hip stuff to OLD John McCain . . .you know, when he's on the big "straight talk" bus feelin' the push of his big patriotic ego.

Oh, before I write another word here, an apology is due. Those who read my random thoughts from time to time know that I've commonly placed Sen. McCain at the bottom of his Naval Academy class at number 850. Well Sorry! I've since been told that I should get my facts straight before issuing such a potentially damaging piece of information. He was ( and I didn't do a fact check on this; I'll accept it as true) number 849. So, I was wrong; he didn't hit the barrel bottom.

It is true, as I've written before, that he fell out of high school with an academic/behavioral record that might have qualified him for reform school but certainly not college or any other kind of school for that matter. But, when your grandfather and your father are distinguished four star admirals in the US Navy, well, you are eligible for a legacy admission at the United States Naval Academy. Just because cadet McCain spent more time on detention with more demerits than anyone in Naval Academy history is no reason to think they would give him the boot either....No, legacy candidates continue to have the pull and influence of their benefactors behind them. .. in McCain's case, as I've noted, two, not one, but two decorated four star admirals--Daddy and Granddaddy. Kinda like Bush's legacy admission at the Ivy League schools.

Well, the Navy exercised the only option available, under the circumstances, the bottom of the graduating class, or at barrel's end.

Now that we've established the fact that the good Senator is not an intellectual shining star, it's a little easier to understand his V P. pick--the baked Alaska. To be sure there were more than a few confused looks on the faces of TV''s talking heads after Ms. Palin's name was announced. First expressions from the pundits almost all embodied some element of disbelief. Disbelief quickly followed by the Mary Matlin Republican Party types who smilingly told us that Alaska's Ms. Palin was far more accomplished and experienced than the Democrat's Brock Obama. After all she'd been a runner up in a beauty contest, served a couple years as mayor of a small, isolated, Alaska town, (I guess they're all isolated in Alaska) and was a year and a half into the governorship of a state with more Moose than people--the least populated state in the nation. And, it turns out, she spends so much time in church, or someplace, that she can't be at home to supervise her then sixteen year old daughter who was playing house in the bedroom, and you know how rabid those fundamentalists are about sex ed. . . .gotta do the educating at home; can't let the public schools corrupt family life. Nope, that just won't do it. Well, that daughter, educated or not was doin' her boyfriend at home.

Just you never mind that Obama graduated from two of the most distinguished universities in the country if not in the world; served as editor of the Harvard Law School Review, an honor bestowed upon people of unique intellectual power and performance, served eight years in the Illinois State Senate, was elected to the United States Senate and spent 18 months on the campaign trail verbally sparing with some of the most accomplished politicians in the country. Obama’s smart. . .but I guess we can't have that kinda uppity crap in the good old US of A.

Sen. McCain insured that he wouldn't fall victim to the pitfalls of the vice presidential selection process that so clearly tripped Obama up; he'd have no green horn like Joe Bidden on his ticket. No sir! McCain picked from the pool of the great unknown for his VP running mate. . .that's right. Not only did she limp through a third tier college with a degree in how to be a beauty queen at Potato State in Idaho; in the 1990's she joined the Independent party; a political party in Alaska bent on taking Alaska out of the union. Yep, this is the same gal who audaciously asked, "What does the Vice President do? I 'm the kind a person that likes to do things,” she said, “ I don't wanta spend my time going to state funerals and things like that."

But not to get too far off the trail here. . .Why did McCain pick an Idaho potato translated into a baked Alaska as his VP running mate? It's as simple as understanding the basic laws of attraction or association . . .maybe it's both of 'em, I'll figure that out later, but the principles are easy. When you step out in to the garden, grab a pea pod off the vine and squeeze it open, you see a neat little row of peas, all lined up, no beans, no raisins, just little green peas that all look and taste alike. Damn you say, "Now ain't that just down right pretty."

You glance up at the wild blue, just to say a little thank you to the big guy who organizes all this stuff, and as you're lookin' up sayin' your thanks, you notice several eagles flying high over head. . .no turkeys in their midst. . .just eagles; it’s ‘cause of that association business I was alluding to a moment ago.

Wow! I don't know what other people think when they see things like the peas in the pod and the eagles flying high overhead without any turkeys in their midst; but me, it reminds me of an old drunk who used to speak words of wisdom to me every time he heard I'd gotten' kicked outa school for fighten' or doing something equally stupid. He'd always say, "Davy, if you want to soar with the eagles you're going to have ta quit acting like a God damned turkey. (By the way, he's the reason I cuss once in a great while.)

But back to McCain, he picked a dimwit because he is a dimwit.

You may think my analysis is way off the mark, but be prudent, don’t bet against me. Just after recording these thoughts for the ages, I happened to read the conservative New York Times Columnist David Brooks. Though he casts his explanation of McCain’s VP pick in a different frame than I did–he’s trying to rationalize the stupidity of a fellow conservative-- the fact is that in its essentials he agrees with what I’ve written. He notes, for example, that, “John McCain is not a normal conservative. . . . .”

“When McCain met Sarah Palin last February,” Brooks wrote, “ he was meeting the rarest of creatures, an American politician who sees the world as he does. Like McCain, Palin does not seem to have an explicit governing philosophy. Her background is socially conservative, but she has not pushed that as governor of Alaska. She seems to find it easier to work with liberal Democrats than the mandarins in her own party.”

. . . . . .

Brooks concludes, “Many people are conditioned by their life experiences to see this choice of a running mate through the prism of identity politics, but that’s the wrong frame. Sarah Barracuda was picked because she lit up every pattern in McCain’s brain, because she seems so much like himself” (David Brooks, New York Times Opinion Column, 2 September 2008).

See! What'd I tell ya? It's the basic laws of attraction or association at work in the McCain selection.

Now, if you think McCain is the only stupid bastard out there who thinks Ms. Palin’s well qualified to be VP, well you need to read a little American History. Don't forget, the biggest rap on Adlai Stevenson was the size of his brain; he was just to damned smart. . .an egg head. Richard Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize winning book Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963) contains many examples of bias against intellectuals in American History from the very beginnings of our nationhood right down to the time of his death, and as a people I'm not aware that there has been any big transformation of the basic American character. I haven’t heard anybody singing where have all the dummies gone? Nope, it was the flowers that took a powder. The dummies are still with us; we know where they've gone! Yep, they're congregating over there in St. Paul as I write.


Ever on the watch for ya,
Davy Crockett