McCain's Palin pick is the epitome of tokenism, by Joe Conason

[jefferson_dem]

McCain's Palin pick is the epitome of tokenism
Suddenly all anyone needs to qualify as a potential commander in chief is to be a religious ideologue with female gender characteristics?

By Joe Conason

Aug. 30, 2008 | It is hard to think of a more cynical and contemptuous political act this year than John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. Having served as governor of Alaska for less than two years -- and as mayor of a small town before that -- her qualifications for national office are minimal.

Palin is the epitome of tokenism, exactly what conservative Republicans have always claimed to scorn, until today, as the politics of quotas and political correctness. Even Rush Limbaugh is a feminazi now (at least until Election Day).

But if Palin's résumé is limited, to put it politely, she possesses the only two qualities that McCain now seems to consider essential: She is a right-wing religious ideologue with female gender characteristics. Suddenly that is all anyone needs to qualify as a potential commander in chief of the world's most powerful military. We probably won't hear so much from now on about "experience" and "judgment," McCain's vaunted standard for the presidency until ... today. We certainly won't hear again about the "person most prepared to take my place," the phrase he has used more than once to describe his main criterion for a running mate.

When CNN political correspondent Dana Bash interviewed McCain last April, she mentioned his joke that one of the two main tasks of the vice president is to check on the president's health every day, a job of particular importance in his case. What did he mean by that? It was just a humorous remark, he said. But when she pressed him further, McCain said: "I think about whether that person who I select would be most prepared to take my place. And that would be the key criteria ."

Sometime between then and now, a focus group must have told McCain and his handlers that the experience argument wasn't cutting against Barack Obama, that the nomination of Joe Biden as Obama's running mate had eviscerated it completely -- and that instead he and his consultants had better find a way to corral disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters, or forget about winning come November.

Clearly nobody in the Republican camp is concerned that Palin would be clueless in a national security crisis, should a 72-year-old or older President McCain abruptly die or become disabled. Perhaps the GOP will have to mothball all those "Country First" banners along with the experience meme, because no candidate who puts the security of the nation above politics would ever contemplate this maneuver.

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http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/08/30/palin/print.html

[roesch]

1. what her nomination says

After listening to Rush and others talk her up, I think the response should be that it looks like the conservative wing of the party has replaced McCain with their candidate-- he really is no longer considered to be the top of the ticket-- rub that in some faces and see how they like it.

[tbyg52]

2. McCain is a tool. That makes his VP pick a tool of a tool. nt