Sarah Palin's Media Mockery Tour

By Alan Caruba

Watching the mobs of media folk chasing Sarah Palin’s bus resembles paparazzi chasing Lindsay Lohan more than anything related to serious politics in America. But, hey, if we were truly serious about politics, would we have elected Obama and Biden, or any of the other Leftwing loonies in Congress?

Fox News anchorette, Greta Van Susteran, hitched a ride with Sarah on a huge bus whose exterior is illustrated to demonstrate it is NOT a campaign bus, but just your typical family recreation vehicle as the Palin clan arrived in Washington, D.C., just in time for the Rolling Thunder motorcycle tribute to the nation’s fallen heroes.

Reportedly, Palin has not provided the mainstream media with an itinerary of her trip although we are told that she will head to Gettysburg at some point; probably right after having dined with—are you ready for this—Donald Trump.

While in Washington, she took her family to the National Archives to view the “foundation” documents on display. Something, frankly, every parent should do. My Father took me to the nation’s capital when I was a boy and we toured all the sites from the Lincoln Memorial to the Smithsonian. It’s not something one is likely to forget.

Palin, however, is beginning to sound like some windup doll where you pull the string and it spouts the same message over and over again. There’s no doubt that many on the Right welcome it, but at the same time it tends to sound trite after the fiftieth iteration.

I am among those who think that Palin will not take a run at the presidency. I think this bus tour has layers of reasons that include demonstrating her political viability, her potential kingmaker status, her “brand” to sell future books, and to prove she can draw a crowd anywhere in ways that the current crop of candidates cannot.

It is no accident she will be in New Hampshire the same day Mitt Romney officially announces his candidacy and you can imagine how thrilled he is about that! It also demonstrates the early lack of enthusiasm for most of the Republican field of candidates. That is not unusual. Things don’t begin to heat up until the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries.

Palin, though, despite all she has been through since John McCain picked her from the anonymity of being Alaska’s Governor, still cannot handle even softball questions. She can deliver a speech to audiences eager to hear all that good stuff about the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and conservative values, but there is little indication, as Brit Hume, a Fox News analyst, recently observed, that she has “schooled” herself in the greater global issues of our times.

In the meantime, she has got the usual media mob trailing her bus around, intoxicated by the carbon monoxide fumes, and desperate to get a sound bite. It is Palin’s revenge for the way they normally savage her.

It is her Media Mockery Tour.

For my part, the notion of a President Palin borders on farce. It’s a lot like the Broadway myth, “You’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!” The 2008 campaign made Palin an instant star.

Everything she has done and said since then has maintained that status, but it is a theatrical term, not a political one. The media, Left and Right, is fascinated with her and she has coined that fascination with bestselling books, a television travel series, and well-paid speaking engagements; nothing wrong with that.

But President? Get real.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Cartoon Round Up

Cartoon Round Up

Halfway Between Sanity and Bedlam

By Alan Caruba

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

To listen, watch, or read the news these days, one is struck by the sheer insanity of most of the activities sanctioned by the government and encouraged by the signs of sanity reflected by the outcome of the midterm elections.

The people have spoken! And they are still at risk of being ignored by the White House and the Democrats.

For example, the “enhanced” airport inspections complete with full-body scanners and “pat downs” that have managed to enrage air travelers. The Israelis don’t do this and they have never had an El Al flight hijacked or blown up. Meanwhile, al Qaeda is enjoying the way the Department of Homeland Security has vastly over-reacted to its threat. As many rational observers have pointed out, identifying ARABS and/or MUSLIMS for a closer look is a very good idea. There is no record of a Catholic nun having ever hijacked a commercial jet.

In March of this year close to a million Americans showed up near the Capitol steps to protest Obamacare. They were dismissed by David Axelrod, a White House advisor, who said, “They’re wrong.” This was followed by Speaker Pelosi telling Americans that Obamacare had to be passed first so everyone could know what was in it and that included the members of Congress who voted for it. That is a definition of crazy. Almost immediately, corporations and unions began to file for waivers for their employees and members. Laws are supposed to apply equally to all Americans. Obamacare does so by raising your health insurance premiums.

The Federal Reserve, charged with the responsibility of protecting the value of the dollar, hasn’t done that for decades. Since the dollar is not pegged to a commodity such as gold, it is merely a piece of paper that the government promises to honor. That is now in jeopardy as the Fed engages in yet another “quantitative easing”, buying U.S. debt with devalued U.S. dollars. Other nations watching this slight-of-hand are not fooled and at some point they will stop buying $50 billion in U.S. securities every day.

One sign of sanity were the midterm elections that returned power in the House to the Republicans and narrowed the power of Democrats in the Senate. Members of the Republican Party and Independents are waiting to see if its leadership has figured out that they do not want any compromise with the White House that has never shown any compromise during the last two disastrous years.

The Republicans have real depth in terms of whoever they might choose to run against Obama, but all the “buzz” remains focused on former Governor Sarah Palin who can be seen these days in a Discovery Channel series about her family and Alaska. I doubt Sarah will take us on a tour of the utterly barren Alaska National Wildlife Refuge under which lies millions of barrels of untapped AMERICAN oil. It is just insane to not tap the enormous reserves of oil that are known to exist throughout and offshore of AMERICA.

On November 20, General Motors held an initial public offering (IPO). You will recall that, instead of being allowed to go through the normal process of bankruptcy and restructuring, the Obama administration stepped in and made all Americans part owners. Isn’t that called Communism?

John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute said this of the IPO: “What exactly is so remarkable about a company coming back to life after a $65 billion taxpayer bailout, additional billions in tax breaks not available to other companies, and even an amazing “sovereign immunity” exemption for this IPO from anti-fraud securities laws and lawsuits? With this massive infusion of government aid and favors, even a company selling ketchup Popsicles to women wearing white gloves would likely show a profitable quarter!”

If, by now, you have seen a pattern of public policy that has staggered back and forth between sanity and bedlam, you are not alone. The first two years of the Obama administration has systematically destroyed confidence in America from within and without.

The international slap-downs the President has encountered speak to an insane policy that includes adding trillions to the national debt; thus putting the United States on a par with member nations of the European Union that are in financial trouble.

Americans, usually known for their common sense, are in near rebellion.

They don’t want to be fondled on their way to a vacation or business flight.

They don’t want the government to tell them what they should eat.

They don’t want a million mandates about everything they purchase.

They don’t want their children brainwashed in schools and colleges to believe utter nonsense about “climate change” and all the absurd claims attached to it. Change is what the climate has done for 4.5 billion years on planet Earth.

They don’t want amnesty programs for people who entered the nation illegally.

They don’t like the fact that government workers, thanks to the largest union in America, earn far more than those in the private sector and receive outsized pension and health benefits.

Et cetera!

America lost its mind over a totally unknown Senator from Illinois in 2008. In 2010 it is struggling to regain its sanity and is demanding the same of those whom it has elected to protect the nation against him.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Saint Sarah of Wasilla

By Alan Caruba

Every time I see Sarah Palin, I think of the total population of Alaska which, according to the 2010 World Almanac is 686,293 citizens. Anchorage’s population is 279,243..

Then I think of the many other U.S. cities that have populations that exceed the entire population of Alaska. They include Austin, Texas, Charlotte, North Carolina, Columbus, Ohio, and San Jose, California, to name just a few.

There are mayors throughout the U.S. that deal with problems of far greater magnitude than the former Governor of Alaska and former candidate for Vice President of the United States of America ever encountered.

I may well be the only conservative in America who thought John McCain was out of his mind when he chose then-Governor Palin to be his running mate in the 2008 campaign. The last person to choose a woman running mate was Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter’s Vice President, who in 1984 was soundly defeated by Ronald Reagan.

I do not think America is ready for a woman president. I will leave it to the political scientists to argue whether Sarah helped or hurt the McCain campaign because, in my view, most of the damage was self-inflicted by Senator Maverick.

I confess, I have never been keen on women in political office. It is a prejudice of which I am not particularly proud, but one need only cast an eye on the likes of California’s Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, and Diane Feinstein to find common ground with Burt Prelutsky, a fellow commentator, who says they remind him of the three witches in the opening scene of Macbeth.

There are many other women in Congress and most of the time when I see or hear one, I keep wishing they had stayed home to raise a family or run a flower shop or some other business than the nation’s business.

None of this is politically correct, but I’m not here to offer pabulum.

I watched Palin’s $100,000 address to the Tea Party conference in Nashville and could not shake the notion that it was 98% pure clichés. This is not to say that the attendees weren’t the best kind of patriots America could hope for, but it is to say that Palin has very little to offer other than to wave the flag, mention Reagan a lot, and tease President Obama.

That didn’t keep the audience from giving her many rounds of applause and even, at one point, to shout “Run, Sarah, run.” No, please do not run, even though we both know you have to dangle that prospect in order to remain a viable political figure.

Part of my problem with Palin is that she resigned from the last political job she had. No doubt the rising costs of all the nonsense lawsuits brought against her played a role in that decision. The prospect of cashing in on her sudden celebrity and popularity was no doubt a factor as well. I daresay it may have been the best decision to make at the time.

The Palin conundrum is this: she is pretty much the lone voice of the conservative movement; articulating its fundamental values of self-reliance and responsibility, smaller government, and a strong defense. Almost alone among the Republican Party’s spokespersons, Palin plainly says we are at war with al Qaeda.

Even though I am in agreement with her, whenever I see her I cannot shake the same feeling I get while watching a circus act, akin to fire eaters or sword swallowers; briefly entertaining, but quite forgettable.

For the present, Palin offers the Republican Party a “personality” to carry the flag until someone like the new Senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, develops a national following or some other new faces emerge from the 2010 midterm elections.

With few exceptions, male Republican office holders tend to be fairly colorless policy wonks and pinstripe-suited folk who have the right answers, but not the theatrical skills to evoke much enthusiasm from a wary and weary electorate.

At some point, however, Sarah needs to return to Alaska…and stay there.

Ga-Ga for Sarah

By Alan Caruba

As we know from the 2008 campaign, every so often Americans go ga-ga over some politician. A relatively slim majority of the voters were convinced that Barack Obama was the first or second coming of a great new future filled with “change”; all of which has turned out for the worst.

The inexplicable choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate instantly conferred fame on the now-former Governor of Alaska and brought out all the attack dogs of the media. I was instantly reminded of the Geraldine Ferraro fiasco when Walter Mondale selected her as his running mate in 1984.

At this point, Palin embodies all the discontent of a vast body of Americans who believe that the nation has lost touch with conservative principles of fiscal prudence, a strong national defense, and smaller government.

Since there are currently few Republicans in high office that can be considered front-runners in 2012, Palin gives party loyalists someone in whom they can invest their hope in the short run, if not as a candidate herself, at least as a spokesperson for the values they share.

It was fairly obvious throughout the campaign that Palin was not well-schooled in foreign affairs issues, although her strong suit was clearly energy issues due to her role in Alaska’s oil-rich good fortune. She is perhaps a quick learner and could yet master the myriad of things a national leader has to know in order to demonstrate competence.

Her fairly swift rise to high office in Alaska appears to have been powered by dissatisfaction with corrupt state politicians who had disappointed Alaskans sufficiently to take a chance on a fresh new face and voice. In office, she took on the oil interests and rid the state of wasteful spending. It should be noted, however, that the World Almanac puts Alaska’s population as of 2007 at 683,478 people. Most U.S. cities have larger populations.

I think Tina Fey’s Saturday Nigh Live depiction of Sarah Palin resonated with viewers for both its remarkable physical similarity and its clear suggestion that she too often appeared clueless during the campaign.

That was then and this is now. And now there is the soaring bestseller status of her book and the promotional tour that is intended to sell even more while establishing her as a significant voice for conservatives in general and Republicans in particular.

She is, in many ways, a media phenomenon and that includes most of the media that still abhors her, the remainder that wants to exploit her for ratings and circulation, and the few that want to provide her with a legitimate platform to express her views.

These days, Geraldine Ferraro, a Democrat, is called upon to occasionally comment on matters deemed appropriate for a former vice presidential candidate, a former Congresswoman, and a kind of political freak of nature.

Once the uproar over Palin’s book subsides, this is likely to be her role in life as well; a female Republican office-holder plucked from relative obscurity for whatever reasons John McCain had at the time.

The success of Palin’s book will help pay the enormous legal bills she and her husband faced as the result of malicious suits brought against her, all of which have ended in failure to find any wrongdoing. Her speaking fees will provide her family with a lifestyle that she has earned by being tough enough to meet the extraordinary challenges with which her political and personal life has presented her.

Beyond that, I do not see her reentering the political scene by running for Senator from Alaska, for its Governor again, or any other position, least of all the presidency. I think she will continue to evolve into a spokesperson for values and principles that many Americans share, but which are being eroded by a full scale attack by the Obama administration.

So, let’s all go ga-ga for Sarah for a little while and let’s hope she will eviscerate Barack Obama with the same gusto she hunted moose.

Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!

By Alan Caruba

Sarah Palin’s stunning announcement on July 3rd that she would step down as Governor of Alaska at the end of the month left all the political pundits gazing into their crystal ball desperately looking for an explanation.

The most obvious answer was the one she offered. She had done as much as she thought she could do for Alaska and now she wanted some time with her family. We are conditioned to never believe what politicians tell us and, in most cases, that is the wisest thing, but Palin breaks the mold in many ways.

The first thing everyone wants to know is whether she will run for President? She is enormously popular with many rank and file Republicans, but probably not with the power brokers within the party. She is, unlike John McCain, a true “maverick” because she actually believes in the major tenets of conservatism, limited government, strong defense, and fiscal prudence.

The GOP has long since strayed from those Reaganesque values and there is no better recent example than George W. Bush. For the life of me, I still have no idea how McCain got the nomination and things got really bizarre when he plucked Palin out of the wilds of Alaska and near total obscurity.

She was, after all, a woman. The last time a presidential candidate selected a woman as his running mate was Walter Mondale who chose Geraldine Ferraro and that turned out to be a Democrat disaster. What was McCain thinking? Of course, that’s what Republicans keep asking no matter what McCain says or does as he seems like some kind of stealth Democrat most of the time.

Palin was an instant hit; a sudden political superstar and, at the same time, also a candidate in over her head when it came to a national election. The press quickly lampooned her as a Moose-shooting rube from the only state less far away from the lower 48 than Hawaii. Even so, she was dynamite on the stump. And she still draws large, enthusiastic crowds to the consternation of Democrats and some Republicans.

Palin suffered from one of the worst political campaigns in recent memory. McCain had no central message, few new ideas, and poor delivery whether delivering a speech or in an interview. The man was painful to watch. He looked old. He sounded old. The contrast with his young running mate made some think the wrong person was on the top of the ticket running for president.

Palin was, by virtually any political standard, unique. Plain-speaking, possessed of a photogenic family and with personal, religious, and political values that rang true with a lot of people who sensed she was the real deal as a conservative.

She also did not appear to have much depth when it came to the major issues challenging the nation. She tended to speak in clichés and still does.

She brought out the very worst in Democrats/liberals. I cannot recall when a candidate was so viciously attacked. The mainstream media parachuted reporters into Wasilla, Alaska in a desperate effort to find anything bad to say about her. On Saturday Night Live, a devastating satirical portrait by Tina Fey turned her into a joke; someone who “could see Russia” from her front porch.

If the GOP could bottle whatever it is she does that drives liberals like New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd insane, we could begin to win some elections again. Citing another hit job, a profile by Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair, Dowd notes that some regard Palin as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, but clearly has not noticed any evidence of this in President Obama.

So why did she quit and what will she do now? I think the girl from Wasilla wants some time with her family while she and they are still young. She has five children and one grandchild. They are Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow and Piper. Unwed, teenage Bristol is the mother of Tripp. This is definitely not the Brady Bunch.

She probably also needs time away from the horrid attacks. I don’t think most of us give much thought to the toll such savagery takes on a public figure. She surely has done nothing to deserve it other than to become a rising star among a fairly dull Republican roster of potential presidential candidates.

Larry Kudlow, the columnist and radio host with a brilliant take on economic issues, thinks she is the new head of the Republican Party and I think he may be right.

And, finally, I keep thinking she would really like to take off the gloves and tear into Barack Hussein Obama. The Alaskan Governor’s office is not the right place to do that. Combine that will a quarter million in legal expenses to defend against spurious charges, and the reason for leaving early seems fairly obvious.

She needs a bigger platform and her new freedom gives her one.

The President becomes more vulnerable to serious criticism with every passing day and, so far, Republicans have been too quiet. Palin is likely to do politically to Obama what she has already done to a Moose.

The GOP is Not DOA

By Alan Caruba

There has been much weeping and wailing about the Republican Party as dead and gone, never to return to its grandeur and, more importantly, its power in Congress and the White House.

I can recall the defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964 (Yes, I am that old!) when a lot of Republicans likewise felt that the party was dead. What followed, of course, was the usual Democrat excesses that included vastly expanding the Vietnam War from a backwater operation involving a handful of military advisors to a full-scale conflict, plus the Great Society programs that sucked billions out of the economy and accomplished nothing of lasting value.

By 1968, having served out the assassinated John F. Kennedy’s term and been resoundingly re-elected, Lyndon Johnson told the nation he would not run for office again. By the time the war was finally concluded, America had over 50,000 dead. It would grind on through Richard Nixon’s first and second terms until its end in 1975.

Nixon was never a popular President, but he was a very effective one. He was also totally paranoid and, despite an enormous victory over George McGovern, he ruined his political career by signing off on the White House operation that led to the Watergate scandal. The result of that was Jimmy Carter.

Carter was loathed by just about everyone by the time he was defeated, having made more blunders than any President in the modern era. What followed, of course, were eight years glorious and politically conservative years of Ronald Reagan.

I cite this history because I believe that Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter Redux. It has taken him a mere 100 days or so in office to awaken the worst fears and general distrust of not just Republicans, but those Democrats who voted for his message of “change”, only to discover it translated to a proposed budget the size of which has never been seen in Washington, massive projected deficits, and a rise in taxation that is going to make everybody angry.

But, hey, that’s what Democrats do!

Fasten your seat belts. We have not even begun to see how weird things are going to get, given Obama’s strange notion that he can make millions and millions of Muslims love America when those, particularly in the Middle East, harbor unkind thoughts about the Great Satan. He is utterly deluded, but probably fondly recalling his days as an Indonesian citizen, his Muslim step-father, and his Muslim birth father who skipped out on his mother who ultimately left him in the care of her parents.

Obama is getting lots of help from “crazy eyes” Nancy Pelosi, the Abominable Speaker, who just got caught telling still more lies about when and what she knew about “enhanced interrogation” techniques. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, the withered stick of liberalism, just got the administration to shut down Yukka Mountain, a multi-million dollar repository for spent nuclear fuel waste. It was and is the perfect place to put it, but now the stuff just sits around where any enterprising terrorist could get their hands on it.

As word begins to penetrate the voter’s thick skulls that “Cap-and-Trade” legislation to reduce greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions will drive energy bills through the ceiling and cripple the economy, the Democrats will have to back off of that crazed idea.

I could go on, but it’s worth being mindful that cases seeking proof that Obama was born in Mombassa, Kenya, are still wending their way through the courts and will, in the great fullness of time, be adjudicated. That’s not something Obama can stop though we know he’s had a legal team on it for months, if not years, at this point.

Will the GOP recover? Of course it will! We may even pick up the equivalent of “Reagan Democrats” in 2010 and 2012. Life in America is getting difficult and costly. Conservative values involving fiscal prudence, lower taxes, and a strong defense will re-emerge to take center stage. I don’t care what the pundits say, Americans do not like or want to be on the dole.

But, please, not Sarah Palin. She is not the new face of the Republican Party and never was until John McCain took ten minutes deciding to make her his vice president selection. She was not ready for prime time and still is not ready. Her family situation is not exactly perfect either. As for McCain, it’s rumored that he’s a Republican.

No, some real Republican will step up. Someone always does. Mitt Romney is looking better with every passing day. Huckabee will stay in TV land. There are others I could name, but my guess is that the GOP could run anyone of its top tier leadership and win.

Cheer up! There’s a mid-term election in October 2010!

Welcome to 2008...Again

By Alan Caruba

Americans, famed now for their short attention span and memory, as well as their general lack of knowledge of their own history, would benefit if they just looked back a year to the beginning of 2008 to recall what we were thinking and what we were anticipating.

Writing in The Economist, a British magazine, the eponymous “Lexington”, a columnist, noted that, “Americans have traditionally been much more optimistic than Europeans, and happier, too. They believe that people determine their own fate. They also believe that their children will have a better life than they do.”

“But the past five years have produced a dramatic souring in the country’s mood. Three quarters of Americans now think that the country is ‘on the wrong track’…Trust in government is half what it was in 2001.” But Lexington then began to innumerate all the reasons Americans were doing so much better than his British and European counterparts, not the least of which was a range of social problems that Americans were addressing much better.

“Americans have the highest fertility rate of any rich country. That is a long-term vote of confidence in the country’s future,” concluded Lexington and, indeed, the first bit of news on January 1st was that of the first babies born in 2009.

The Economist is a weekly comprehensive look at the world in terms of events, but mainly in terms of, well, economic trends. Its reporters in the first week of 2008 were contemplating a Cuba without Fidel Castro; a Mexican economy dependent on its oil exports; writing about slum conditions in Mumbai, India; Thailand’s upcoming elections; the oppression in Myanmar, formerly Burma; and the slow economy recovery in Germany.

What that first issue of 2008 reveals is a world—as always—in transition, but to what? For all the showy meetings and conferences, it remains an ironclad truism that nations pursue what they regard as their own best interests. Alliances may be long or short, but always subject to events that change perceptions.

Americans who had barely elected George W. Bush in 2000 welcomed his “with us or against us” attitude following 9/11, the biggest game-changer of the decade, but as events in Iraq dragged on his popularity continued to plummet. By 2008, more than 35 million Republicans stayed home rather than vote for John McCain.

The incoming President-elect, Barack Obama, will arrive at the White House with the highest popularity rating in recent history. Keep that in mind a year from now.

As 2008 began, The Economist opined that, “A credit crunch, a liquidity squeeze, a sub-prime meltdown—the shape-shifting menace that has vexed the world in 2007 has been all these things. But now it looks like becoming a banking crisis as well.”

By the fall of 2008 a panicked Congress authorized a multi-billion bailout of Wall Street, banks, insurance companies, and even Detroit auto manufacturers that, as 2009 begins, has metamorphosed into a bailout of every industry and State that has a full panoply of lobbyists in Washington, D.C.

If by 2010 some trust, some confidence has not been restored in both the economy and the politics of the nation, and if the Democrat controlled Congress has passed every insane, liberal program possible, we will likely see a significant shift back to Republican control, not unlike that of 1994. If the GOP can avoid committing political suicide by running Gov. Palin for President in four years, it may retain and gain power.

Meanwhile, 2009 looks to be a grim year for a lot of people and for the future of the nation. When economies falter, it brings out the worst in nations and people.

A Heartbeat Away

By Alan Caruba

At a dinner for Nobel Prize winners in 1962, President John F. Kennedy said that those present constituted “probably the greatest concentration of talent and genius in this house except for perhaps those times when Thomas Jefferson ate alone.”

Given how poorly history is taught these days, it may come as a surprise that Thomas Jefferson was vice president to John Adams who had been vice president to George Washington. Adams tried to turn the vice president’s job into something substantial. The Constitution says only that the vice president shall preside over the Senate and, when necessary, shall cast a deciding vote in the event of a tie. His efforts to make something more of the job were defeated by the Senate of his day.

Jefferson heartily disliked Adams although later in their lives when both were out of public office they became good friends, corresponding daily with one another. Both died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Adams’ last words were, “Jefferson survives.”

To pass the time as vice president, Jefferson wrote the Manual of Parliamentary Practice, a guide that is still consulted today. “A more tranquil and unoffending station could not have been found for me” said Jefferson at the time, but he had plans to be president and would become our third.

In an entertaining new book about our nation’s vice presidents, “The Warm Bucket Brigade”, Jeremy Lott relates that, “The first two vice presidents were elected president outright, and twelve more veeps would end up, by hook or by crook, in the White House running things. The vice presidency has supplied a third of our presidents. For that reason alone, it’s worth losing sleep over.”

Although the office of vice president has gained in political power in recent times, it was an innocuous position for much of the early history of the nation until the 20th century. As Lott describes it, “If we wanted to create an office to trade prestige for ambition—a drunk tank for the power mad—we’d probably concoct something like the modern vice presidency.”

In the modern era, the vice president’s office gave us Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman, two relatively minor politicians before the death of the sitting president thrust them onto the world stage. Historians score both highly and it is interesting to note that Teddy Roosevelt was given the nomination to get rid of him politically. Truman was there to balance the ticket and because his fellow Senators respected his reputation for honesty and integrity.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was John F. Kennedy's vice president. Richard Nixon was Eisenhower's vice president on his way to becoming the only president forced to resign. Gerald Ford, Nixon's second vice president after Spiro Agnew was forced to resign, would succeed him into the office courtesy of the Watergate scandal. Those of us who lived through those years would probably prefer to forget them. They were exceedingly unpleasant, particularly since you had to live them one day at a time.

Prior to George W. Bush, his father, George H.W., served as Ronald Reagan's vice president before winning the job. Perhaps no vice president has had such influence as Dick Cheney, but he arrived with so much experience in Congress and inside the White House that few other men could rival his political gifts. We are not likely to see anyone like him again for a while.

No matter who you think won the vice president debate or who the robotic pundits of the mainstream media say won, it’s still useful to remember that whoever becomes the next vice president will, indeed, be a heartbeat away from being your next president.

The Great Veep Debate: A Preview

By Alan Caruba

Thursday night will be the great debate between the vice presidential candidates, Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin. Pundits are already predicting who will win or lose depending on their political preference.

I suspect that the handlers of both these candidates are shaking in their boots as they try to prepare them for what we are all being told will be a critical turning point in the election. The advice to both of them must sound like a deluge of do’s and don’ts. We forget, however, that both have considerable experience in politics and track records of winning their office

We, the audience, have already been “prepped” for the debate. Saturday Night Live has turned Gov. Palin into a silly, babbling, clueless fool. To their credit, SNL have been equally savage to Sen. Obama. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Chevy Chase’s portrayal of Gerald Ford may have cost him the election. Happily, the long string of bad movies Chase made after that was some kind of karmic payback.

The media in general have not spared Sen. Biden for being a “gaffe machine”, but they have lowered the standard for saying stupid or false things than for all other candidates. He’s been treated more like a loveable goofy uncle that just says silly things. He is, however, a U.S. Senator and he is running for Vice President of the United States.

Then, of course, there’s the revelation that Gwen Ifill, the debate moderator, will have a book published after the inauguration about something she calls “the age of Obama.” Being a bona fide journalist, we are all assured that she doesn’t have a biased bone in her body. I am sure that comes as a great comfort to Gov. Palin. In the real world, however, Ms. Ifill should not have accepted the moderator’s job and should be replaced. In a court of law, it would be declared a mistrial.

If the vice presidential debate proves to be as boring as the first McCain-Obama debate, a lot of people are going to be very disappointed. Those in their respective campaigns are, however, probably praying for 90 minutes of boredom. This will ensure that, like the first debate, it does not get remembered, nor discussed longer than a day or two.

An exciting exchange of views and even a few barbed remarks, on the other hand, would energize the debate and the supporters of the candidates. All of us who will tune in are surely hoping for this and I would bet good money it won’t happen. I suspect that both candidates will put in a good zombie-like performance complete with Party-Speak and standard stump speech lines.

This debate isn’t about being informative or provocative. It’s about survival. It’s about avoiding saying anything controversial. It’s about sounding competitive without saying anything unpleasant. It’s about not saying anything that is mindlessly stupid.

Bear in mind, these are two professional politicians. I give the debate an hour at best for most people’s span of attention, including my own. The remaining half hour will seem like an eternity for everyone.

America Produces Leaders!

By Alan Caruba

I keep hearing the Democrats bleating like sheep over Governor Sarah Palin’s experience and ability to be “one heartbeat away from the presidency.” What they don’t seem to understand is that America produces people like Sarah Palin all the time. They start out participating in the PTA or the Chamber of Commerce and go on to do marvelous things.

The reason is obvious. People take notice. They spot natural leadership abilities and good judgment, and the next thing you know they are telling these folks to run for mayor and then for governor.

Gov. Palin’s rise was due to the most fundamental exercise of democracy you can find anywhere in America.

That’s why Gov. Palin just knocked out the delegates to the Republican convention. They experienced the same thing that her fellow PTA members did, followed by the folks who elected her to the Wasilla town council, then as mayor, and just as rapidly as Alaska’s Governor.

That’s why America embraced her so swiftly. She is a natural born leader.

It’s the same reason folks in New York took to Teddy Roosevelt or the folks in Missouri took to Harry Truman. People can spot integrity, confidence, vision, and all those other qualities that, combined in an individual, single them out for the responsibility of office.

In the little town in which I grew up and lived most of my life, the people voted one man, Robert Grasmere, mayor year after year. He was gracious, fair, honest, informed, and ready to go to bat for his beloved community. Anyone could approach him and everyone knew he loved little Maplewood, N.J. with every fiber of his body. When he passed on, the church was filled to capacity and the Governor showed up to tell stories about Bob that amused everyone and reminded us why we loved him.

He could have gone on to higher office, served in the state legislature, perhaps been a Representative or Senator in Congress, but Bob just wanted to be Mayor and we just wanted him to be Mayor.

America produces people like him in every town. It doesn’t matter how big or small the town is. Being responsible for people is what the job is all about. Sarah Palin kept doing that as one new child after another arrived. Family, friends, neighbors; she made them her life.

It says something about Sen. Barack Obama that his stint as a state legislator is marked by the many times he voted “present” instead of taking a position and it says even more that, after arriving in the U.S. Senate, he devoted all of his time to running for President instead of serving his Illinois constituency.

If you’re wondering why Sen. Obama is losing his “mojo” and Gov. Palin has rejuvenated Sen. McCain and her party, it’s because ordinary people are taking a look at him and thinking he lacks for everything except naked personal ambition.

They’ve taken a look at Gov. Palin and seen someone who looks and sounds a lot like their mayor.

The GOP Morning After

By Alan Caruba

Republicans woke up on Saturday morning with the realization they have nominated one of the most liberal candidates for President in decades. After eight years of George W. Bush who didn’t veto a single spending bill until after the GOP lost control of Congress in 2006, and after ballooning budgets and deficits, Republicans in Washington, D.C. have become Democrats.

Need proof? Sen. McCain’s preferred choice as his Vice Presidential running mate was his long-time friend and Senate colleague, Joe Lieberman, who you may recall was Al Gore’s running mate when he ran for office.

If Republicans have some unspoken regrets about their candidate, at least they are not Democrats who choose Al Gore, followed by John Kerry, and their current choice, Barack Obama. If the Democrats didn’t have an electoral death wish, things might look worse for the GOP.

Gov. Sarah Palin has energized the Republican base because she is, in many ways, everything Sen. McCain is not. She is a real conservative and the base knows it. At the same time, it must be said that vice presidential candidates do not win elections. Only the top of the ticket can do that.

Sen. McCain’s speech was just okay. No doubt it will be his “stump speech” for the next eight weeks, promising to sweep away Washington’s lobbyists and “special interests”, but only children believe such rhetoric.

The nation’s capital is all about politics. It’s a company town and everyone who lives or works there knows that “issues” may energize those who follow events from afar, but it is taxation and the redistribution of money that is the real business of Congress. Who gets to do that is the reason the two parties square off against one another.

The problem for the rest of us is that the two parties are too often virtually indistinguishable these days. Both are for big and bigger government. Both intend to ignore the gathering storm of under-funded entitlement programs. Both will, if the public lets them, grant instant citizenship to millions of illegal aliens. Both will talk tough about the renewed Russian menace.

Though Bush and now McCain were accused of being war-mongers, the United States could not have invaded and occupied Iraq without the funding support of Democrats in Congress. It was Democrats who wanted to run away when things got tough. It was Republicans who saw the conflict through to a successful outcome.

Then there's the factor that is rarely acknowledged. For nearly fifty years, barely half of the registered voters actually showed up to cast a vote. For the more recent presidential races, the results have been so close that it revealed how sharply divided voters are. There is a liberal base. There is a conservative base. They are the ones who vote.

The problem for conservatives is that we have been severely disappointed by the last eight years of the Bush administration in all, but one respect, his response to 9/11. Conservatives understand the need to go on the attack against our enemies and to remove threats to global peace.

The Bush administration’s failure to be aggressive regarding the nation’s need for energy security is just barely obscured by the Democrat’s aggressive efforts to leave America vulnerable to energy-rich unfriendly nations while thwarting efforts to develop our own national energy reserves.

Lastly, we tend to forget that Sen. McCain is among a swiftly diminishing group of people who believe "global warming" is real and that programs involving the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions are needed. As a new Little Ice Age takes shape, this is about as wrong as one can get, especially if one is President.

What Sen. McCain has going for him is character and experience. He has been tested by life. Perhaps more than any other factor that will undermine Sen. Obama’s quest is the growing perception that he has little to show for his brief time in public service and a host of very questionable friends and associates.

How these factors play out over the next eight weeks will determine the shape, content and events of the next four years.

A Palin Family Problem

By Alan Caruba

Let’s face it. A lot of born-again Christians are going to have to swallow hard to find any good news in the report that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant.

This is not the kind of news that can be “spun” for much other than Bristol Palin’s intention to marry the baby’s father. It will be hard to count how many shotguns there will be at that marriage ceremony! There’s the bride’s family, possibly the groom’s, and an entire contingent of Secret Service agents.

This is such a common scenario for families around the nation that one wonders if it will be greeted with more than a shrug, depending on the mood of voters. I am old enough not to care that much, but there is a vast age group, married, raising teenage children, who might not be so inclined. No doubt many single mothers and their families will see it as a reflection of their own lives.

Reportedly, too, McCain was aware of Bristol’s forthcoming bundle of joy and signed off on Palin anyway. I can’t say why, but I rather like that. A President capable of such understanding of human failings is quite appealing. It suggests a tough, but compassionate man.

All things considered, though, I think Americans in general would prefer not to have this soap opera element added to the national campaign.

What this does, of course, is raise the issue of abortion to a new level for the campaign and the general national debate about the right to life of all unborn babies. Both GOP candidates are pro-life. Voters may conclude that a President McCain would be inclined to appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court. For many, that would be a good thing. For many others it would not.

Poor John McCain, not only did Hurricane Gustav rearrange the Republican Convention schedule, but now he will have address the private life of the teenage daughter of his choice for Vice President. Given the way religion intertwines with politics in America, it adds an unneeded element to the campaign.

Sen. Obama, to his credit, declared the story "off limits." Earlier, during the primaries, he said he would not want either of his daughter’s “punished” if they became pregnant outside of marriage.

My guess is that McCain will make a single statement and refuse to say more. The press, largely devoted to electing Obama, is probably drooling over the prospect of using this to denigrate the McCain campaign. That is likely to blow up in their faces.

There isn’t a single parent of a teenaged girl (or boy) who doesn’t lose sleep over the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy. All the church attendance in the world rarely affects the weakness of the flesh.

It is the unpredictability of politics that makes it so interesting. The baby won’t care. Maybe we shouldn’t either?

Women Who Rule

By Alan Caruba

If you think about it, the U.S. is decades behind other nations that have been led by women. The United Kingdom’s former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, comes rapidly to mind, along with her extraordinary partnership with Ronald Reagan. Then there’s Indira Gandhi who led India for while and, of course, Israel’s Golda Meir.

Today, Angela Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany. In truth, the list of nations in which women who have been or are currently in leadership positions is an amazingly long one. It includes Canada, Argentina, the Philippines, Pakistan, Portugal, Iceland, Norway, the Central African Republic, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Poland to name just a few.

So the notion that Gov. Sarah Palin is “one heartbeat away from the presidency” does not bother me one bit. Meanwhile, in Arizona, Janet Napolitano is Governor. M. Jodi Rell runs Connecticut, Linda Lingle runs Hawaii, Kathleen Sebelius is in charge in Kansas, Jennifer M. Granholm directs Michigan’s affairs, and Christine Gregoire is Governor of Washington.

I am pretty sure the Democrat Party, which always makes a big show of opening doors for women and various minorities, is in a panic over the Republican candidate with the guts to put a woman at the top of the ticket with him.

Men of my generation aren’t particularly “threatened” by women in leadership positions. Most of us recall that Eleanor Roosevelt was as popular and influential as FDR. In those days, mothers were powerful figures, too. Roosevelt’s mother held the family purse strings and actually lived in the White House with him. Ironically, Harry Truman’s wife, Bess, hated being First Lady and retreated to their home in Independence, Missouri for most of his tenure in office.

The mother of General McArthur of World War II and Korean War fame actually moved to a residence near West Point while he attended in order to keep an eye on him. I have always found it a curiosity of history that so many men who emerged as strong leaders also had equally strong mothers in the background.

None of this is to deny that there was and probably still is “a glass ceiling” for woman in America. I am not convinced that those who chose to make career and marriage work were or are that happy with the arrangement. I attribute it to the natural nurturing gene that women have and I still regard the role of mother as one of the most important in the world.

It is inevitable that the United States will have a woman President. One is reminded of the heroic and long struggle to achieve suffrage for women; the simple right to vote. That said, America is still a very young nation and subject to such errors and failures. What counts for me is the way we ultimately embrace change.

It strikes me that the choice of Gov. Palin is nothing short of brilliant. Thank you, John McCain. Thank you, America.

The Formidable Sarah Palin

By Alan Caruba

If Molly Brown was unsinkable, than Gov. Sarah Palin is formidable.

What a remarkable choice and what a good one.

Gov. Palin brings so many assets to the ticket it is hard to know where to begin. As she mentioned in her introductory speech, Hillary Clinton garnered 18 million votes. In my mind’s eye I saw those votes move into her column on Election Day.

There is another factor that will loom large in voter’s minds on November 4 and that is OIL. Alaska sits atop a huge reserve of oil and unknown, potential offshore of its coastline. It is Democrats that have thwarted efforts to drill in ANWR. They're going to wish they hadn't.

As the war in Iraq fades from the headlines, voters are increasingly focusing on domestic issues and high among them is the cost of gasoline and heating oil.

How tired Sen. Joe Biden will look beside this fresh new face of politics in America and how sad that the first thing the Obama campaign did was to deliberately ignore the fact that she is the chief executive of Alaska by commenting on her former office as the mayor of a small town.

Where I live, being mayor is an important job. Being governor of a U.S. State has to be one of the toughest.

Imagine doing that and being the mother of five children, the oldest of whom is headed for Iraq with the U.S. Army and the newest of whom is a Downs Syndrome baby?

Formidable! A remarkable person in her own right, but it gets better. Gov. Palin is a legitimate government reformer.

In the weeks ahead we shall hear much of Sarah Palin, but for now her resume alone must surely give her Democrat opponents pause.

As we all get to know her better, we will be asked to go to the polls and make a truly historic vote for the nation’s future.