Apples and Oranges

I guess my sister’s latest post and the resulting comments got me thinking enough to get back to this blog.

So, being the middle sibling, I won’t mediate between her and my brother but maybe I’ll stir things up. In my opinion, we’re missing the most important issue/s with the Palin nomination.

Because of the nature of the office of the vice president, we should evaluate each VP nominee as if they were at the top of the ticket. And to that point, if executive experience is the test of a nominee’s readiness, then only Palin is ready and the other bums should pack it up and go home. I don’t buy into the executive experience argument in this case.

David Frum made a great observation* about W’s reactionary presidency in comparison to a proactive governance approach. Do we want a president who makes decisions only when a decision has to be made or do we want someone to come to office with specific domestic and foreign policy ideas and then herd Congress and leverage foreign relationships to get things done? For me, the latter.

The problem with Palin, then, is that no one knows where she stands on anything other than social policy. Don’t get me wrong, social issues are important but, with the state of our economy and our international standing, those debates are a distraction, a way to get people on both sides to generate noise. Of course, she’ll co-opt the Republican platform but she should be able to articulate why. Why does she believe the GOP’s positions on immigration, economic and tax policy, torture and preempitive strike are the correct policies for the US? Why does she believe the UN|NATO|OPEC|NAFTA|etc are good or bad institutions and how will she use them to further American interests.

And I really believe she should be able to discuss these issues now… not after going through a crash course with McCain’s campaign after the nomination. We have less than two months to understand what she brings to the office. For McCain, Obama, and Biden we can look at their voting record, the issues they have championed, their voluminous speeches to the public, their writings on foreign and domestic policy, their letters to editors, etc. But that information isn’t yet available for public consumption for Palin. So, we’re left talking about her family and her executive experience.

I wish she would give us something else to talk about.

[* - Yeah, that's right... I actually linked to something on the NRO's site!]