A friend sent me this. We’ve all seen that Palin clip by now. I think it is maybe the first time that SNL was able to use a quote word for word and have it be absolutely hilarious. Jack is mad and he should be.

I would forgive Palin for having one bad moment. We all say stupid things. Lord knows micadelic is going to paste some Obama clip to insure proper balance. But with Palin they are ALL bad moments. I haven’t heard her say an intelligent thing yet, outside of her speech at the convention. She’s not quick on her feet, she’s not well-informed, she’s not highly educated and she’s not articulate. She would be a horrible candidate for President. With McCain being 72 years old, she is running for President. And thus the MaCain-Palin ticket is excluded from being a serious choice for your vote.

I know, I’m some big elitist because I want our highest leaders to be highly intelligent.

WTF.

Palin is doing the one thing that a VP candidate should never do — weakening the ticket. The Republican ticket consists of an old man who can’t seem to control his campaign and a woman who clearly doesn’t have a clue. The financial crisis on Wall St. is damning as hell to the incumbent party and I think we are at the beginning of a McCain tailspin to defeat.

It’s clearly not over yet, but the Palin love affair, with the exception of the most brain-washed pro-lifers, is completely over.

(That is an embed from CNN, we’ll see if it works.)

It’s funny (but painful) to see CNN actually ask and demand answers to hard questions. The McCain campaign has no answer as to why they have a different standard for Sarah Palin than they do for Barak Obama when it comes to the necessary foreign policy experience to be President.

I’m on Sarah Palin’s side on this one. If she is smart, educated and well-informed I believe she can be the President of the United States. Now I’d like John McCain and all you Republicans to say the same of Barak Obama. Then we can set aside this experience argument once and for all.

Note: I’m not picking on her daughter. I did many stupid things at that age, too. I do wonder if Sarah Palin’s views on birth control put her daughter at risk of sexually transmitted disease. I also wonder whether her very public pro-life “family values” will force her daughter into a teen marriage for political reasons.

Sarah Palin is asked:

Will you support the right of parents to opt out their children from curricula, books, classes, or surveys, which parents consider privacy-invading or offensive to their religion or conscience? Why or why not?

To which she replies:

Yes. Parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught.

Later she is asked:

Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

To which she replies:

Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

First of all, the founding fathers had nothing to do with the pledge. “The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), a Baptist minister, a Christian Socialist…”

Second, it did not contain the words “under God” until the 1950′s. It was added because “The Knights of Columbus in New York City felt that the pledge was incomplete without any reference to a deity…”

The quoted text is from Wikipedia.

So Sarah Palin has a strong opinion on something she apparently knows nothing about.

PZ also notes the irony in the answers to these two questions. Parents should decide, unless it is about the Pledge, in which case she’ll fight them!

MinnPost points out that the single-issue Christian wackos love Palin.

It looks to me like she is another Michele Bachman — perhaps slightly smarter but just as much of a party-line Right Wing ideologue.

Republicans are weird, though. Take, for example, this quote:

Palin brings traditional political strengths—such as gun enthusiasm and a pro-life record—to the ticket.

Gun enthusiasm is a political strength? The Righties don’t seem to realize how unimportant guns and abortion are in the real world. When it comes to issues facing America today a) they are on the wrong side of both those issues and b) they are not anywhere near the top of what people are worried about.

Except, of course, for single-issue voters who care only about those two issues. Luckily, they are a shrinking minority.

But back to Palin, it surprises me that McCain took away his main advantage over Obama, which is this inexperience argument. How can McCain hammer on Obama for inexperience when he would put a small-town mayor second in line to the Presidency? It’s true that Obama can’t very well attack Palin on the inexperience issue (even though he is much more experienced than she using normal measures of experience). But McCain just took away one of his major advantages in the debate.

It also seems like a token female gender play, trying to woo Clinton supporters. I am happy to see a woman in the race and I think we should all judge her independent of her gender. But it seems like a completely political decision, as opposed to a policy decision. This could hurt McCain as well.

I don’t think people vote for, or against, the VP, so it may not make tons of difference. But I personally don’t see McCain in a stronger position after this decision.

The volatile issue of teaching creation science in public schools popped up in the Alaska governor’s race this week when Republican Sarah Palin said she thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the state’s public classrooms.

Palin was answering a question from the moderator near the conclusion of Wednesday night’s televised debate on KAKM Channel 7 when she said, ‘Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.’

She later clarified to say “…she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum.”

She’s pro-life, pro-drilling-in-ANWR and she “invokes God in every decision she makes”.

I’m glad McCain chose a woman and I’m not going to condemn her myself until I learn more. But so far it does not look good.