VP "WACK JOB"

Just how dysfunctional would a McCain presidency have been with a "wack job" for a VP? 

Click the title to this post  to find out. 

The term "wack job" came from McCain campaign officials, and the article details an out of control   candidate spending 150K on clothes when she was given a budget of 20-25 thousand.  McCain campaign officials were frustrated that Palin "did not have the bandwidth" to digest foreign policy briefings in advance of her disasterous interview with Katie Couric of CBS. 

The frustration of McCain's staff came to a head in the final days when Palin's staff scheduled and then took a phone from a person the Palin staff believed was the President of France, but was in fact  a pair of well known Canadian comedians, one of whom  impersonated the President of France. Palin continued talking with the person even though he began to make more and more personal and inappropriate comments. The phone call ended with Palin agreeing she could be president "Maybe in eight years". 

This Fox News Report on Youtube asserts that during a briefing Palin "did not understand that Africa" was a continent and got into an argument with the briefers during which Palin continually asserted Africa was a country. 

Palin has fought back, giving an interview in Alaska stating "those guys...are jerks" referring to the unnamed sources in the McCain campaign who were criticising her. 

Palin is and always will be the poster child for the Republican party's religious right. She embraces the idea that having a mediocre intellect and no experience is just what America needs in its leaders. Karl Rove knew that a significant portion of the electorate, perhaps 20 percent, felt comforted in a candidate that seems to be, to put it bluntly, just as stupid as they are.  Rove dumbed down politics and now it is up to Obama and his team to show that being smart, experienced and prepared does not mean being rude and condescending. 

We once applauded a president who quoted poetry. (Kennedy.) We used to elect Presidents who were Presidents of Colleges (Woodrow Wilson-Princeton University) or were nuclear engineers (Carter). 

Then Rove tapped into an undercurrent in American society that was working class poor and un-educated.  Rove knew they would rather vote for a tough talking Texan who made split decisions based on his "feelins" rather than an experienced and educated policy wonk (Gore). The fact that Gore went on to win a Nobel Prize while Bush leaves office with the country in tatters and with a  historically low 25% approval rating only goes to show that people get what they vote for.  

Obama represents a repudiation of the dumbing down of America.  Here is Nicholas Krtistof's Op Ed Piece on Obama and the war on brains.

Kristof wrote:

Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either...

As for President Bush, he adopted anti-intellectualism as administration policy, repeatedly rejecting expertise (from Middle East experts, climate scientists and reproductive health specialists). Mr. Bush is smart in the sense of remembering facts and faces, yet I can’t think of anybody I’ve ever interviewed who appeared so uninterested in ideas.

Rumpole says, it may not be "morning in America again, but at least class is in session."

Won our three main picks yesterday for  +400 but lost 55 on our Dolphins pick, which was just for fun because we were at the game. Total for the week +345/total for the year +944.

Weird week with court's closed Tuesday. See you in court talking about those Fins with a winning record.