A reader responds: The jury is out on Johnny Mac's brilliance but [the Palin announcement] did upstage a great speech.
Out here [California], everyone thinks the Palin choice was not one of McCain's finest moments.
He seems to make snap decisions and views this complicated gray world in black and white moments of impulse.
If he picked her because "the base" would revolt on the convention floor if Ridge or Lieberman were chosen, then where is the “maverick” in him.
Why do you think he did not pick Huckabee (who can play a little bass as well as have somewhat of a grasp on things Republican?)
And I replied: I have to admit that Mike Huckabee's bass playing endeared him to me early on...and that he was my second pick for the nomination...after Fred Thompson.
I think Huckabee comes across as too much of a hick for McCain's tastes. Also, he does not really think out everything he says.
As for Lieberman and Ridge, they are pro-choice, which means that they would be spat out as readily by the GOP convention as a pro-life candidate would have been rejected by the Dems…had Obama selected one. Corollary: The Democrats will never nominate a pro-life candidate and the GOP will never nominate a pro-choice candidate.
Sarah Palin is a woman of surprising capacity. I have been reading and watching old interviews of her and she grasps the number one issue--energy--firmly and authoritatively. I also admire the way she has knocked down the GOP Corrupt Bastards Club's hold on the Alaska Government...and beat a windfall tax out of Big Oil that she turned over to individual Alaskans...and got the natural gas pipeline project started after 30 years of failed negotiations...
When McCain says he vetted her as thoroughly as the other candidates I believe him as he is an honorable man.
If McCain wasn't able to see nuances, he would not have been able to write campaign finance reform law with Russ Feingold or forge a deal on appointments of federal judges with Ted Kennedy, or write a bill on immigration reform both parties (but not the president) could heartily endorse... and play a major part in every bipartisan piece of senate legislation over the past 18 years or so...
McCain has a very keen sense of what is good and evil...a sense that was sharpened under five years of torture as a POW. That's why he can buck his president on the waterboarding issue.
It's fashionable now for people to say that there are no such things as "good" or "evil." Morality tends to be nuanced out of existence. Pat Moynahan called the process, "Dumbing deviancy down."
And yet, in this world there are some things that are decidedly good and decidedly evil. Evil exists in this world...metaphysically, spiritually, physically. The genocides in Darfur and Rwanda are and were evil. Racism is evil. Torture is evil --and we have no business doing it, because we are supposed to be the Good Guys... Nazism is evil. Crime for profit is evil ...even if the profit is only revenge or a sexual thrill. Starvation is evil. Sickness is evil (believe me I know). All forms of cruelty are evil.
Fortunately, the undisputedly good things are in much greater supply. Work is good, because it confers dignity. Familial love is good, because it banishes loneliness and selfishness. Erotic love is good...as long as the "love" part is not forgotten, and as long as it is loving and not using...Knowledge is good...Peace is good....unless it is a peace of fear that allows others to do evil things (see the rise of Nazi Germany as an example)...Charity is good...as long as it does not stand in the way of capable individuals finding work. Hope is good...if it makes us persevere and is grounded in at least a small but reasonable expectation of success…and what we hope for is itself neither selfish nor evil.
I don't dislike Obama. I think he is a good man. I just don't think his ideas will work. McCain comes closer to my way of thinking.
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