Palin Needs to Bail

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker calls for Sarah Palin to bow out after her disastrous interview with CBS's Katie Couric. Fareed Zakaria makes a similar argument:

Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges.

Domestically, the bailout and reform of the financial industry will take years and hundreds of billions of dollars. Health-care costs, unless curtailed, will bankrupt the federal government. Social Security, immigration, collapsing infrastructure and education are all going to get much worse if they are not handled soon.

Paul Newman 1925-2008

Paul Newman, 83, is dead. I will forever remember him for his unwavering commitment to his craft and for his integrity as an actor and, more importantly, as a human being.

McCain Gets Desperate

Sen. John McCain's decision to suspend his campaign and call to postpone Friday's night debate with Barack Obama to participate in the bail-out negotiations in Washington strikes me as little more than acts of a candidate desperately trying to redirect the discussion. And Obama is correct in calling for the debate to proceed as scheduled; after all, the whole idea supposedly behind the debates is to provide a forum for the candidates to articulate their positions on the issues, which includes the current financial crisis.

Leadership Question

The reaction of Barack Obama and John McCain to the Bush Administration's move to bailout a financial system in crisis is instructive and telling on the question of leadership. Obama's message both in substance and tone was measured and thoughtful; McCain's, pointedly partisan and risibly absurd in blaming Obama for profiting from the crisis.

A McCain Endorsement

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a high profile supporter of Hillary Clinton and member of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee, will endorse Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain today. Rothschild's endorsement of McCain apparently stems from her intense dislike of Barack Obama. “This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don't like him. I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.” The proletarian Forester, who is married to international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, is chief executive officer for El Rothschild, a holding company with businesses around the world. She splits time between her homes in London and New York.

Palin's Inexperience

Criticism of Gov. Sarah Palin's readiness for the vice presidency comes from an unlikely source - New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks who writes:

Experienced leaders can certainly blunder if their minds have rigidified (see: Rumsfeld, Donald), but the records of leaders without long experience and prudence is not good. As George Will pointed out, the founders used the word “experience” 91 times in the Federalist Papers. Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders. It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared.

Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.

The idea that “the people” will take on and destroy “the establishment” is a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right. Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place.

Palin and Hannity

Next on the Sarah Palin interview tour, Fox News's Sean Hannity who has said of Palin: "She is a rock star, a rising star, a governor with more experience than Barack Obama ever dreamed of having." Unlike, ABC's Charlie Gibson, Palin will be interviewed by someone equally lacking in gravitas.