Citizen Soldier

A few days ago Senator John McCain chose as his running mate the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. Bully for him!!! I chose her myself back in the Spring based on what was, I admit, limited information. Then she disappeared, and assuming she was no longer under consideration, I went looking for another favorite. Never really found one.

Look what her inclusion has done! She has fired up the base, revved up the candidate, excited the party, killed the afterglow of a hugely successful Democratic Convention, and caught the Obama campaign so flat-footed that it responded with a denigrating put-down only to be contadicted by Obama himself at the first opportunity. Pretty hot stuff for what had looked to be a somewhat desperate race. Can all of that counter the wild enthusiasm for Obama? It remains to be seen.

As for the Governor herself. She is close to the ideal in the democratic tradition; a citizen engaged in ordinary community affairs, compelled by her successes into ever larger, more complicated and more difficult jobs. She did not choose Politics---Politics found her. She is the citizen-soldier of our colonial past, the farmer called to fight who does it so well he rises in the ranks to levels he never dreamed of. The Founding Fathers would applaud her story.

Does that mean she is ready for the job? Yes and no. Temperamentally she is ideally suited.
Well grounded, capable, clearly very bright and a quick study, it is her judgment that has gotten her where she is today. Why should that fail? C'mon!

On today's foreign affairs, situations, policies and the thinking behind them, she is clearly behind. A fatal flaw? I think not. In the months before the team takes office, there will be plenty of willing and able teachers. In office they will still be there, and she will retain her judgment! Thus to assume, while age-related death is not overstated, that McCain might die before she is up to speed is looking at a glass, not half empty, but dry! Downright silly I'd say.

Think Energy. How long is it going to take for Obama and Biden to have her level of understanding about oil, natural gas, their transportation, and their effects on terrain and the economy? And isn't an understanding of those very things essential to the wise conduct of both domestic AND foreign affairs today? I rest my case.

Oh yes, for those pessimists who see her collapsing in the debate with Biden. Not going to happen! She looks to me to be one of those people I too rarely come upon, who sees self- consciousness as an unacceptable form of conceit. That frees her to be totally focused in difficult situations. I'm really looking forward to that debate.

Go Citizen Soldier! Go Sarah Barracuda!!!!