Month: August 2008

Sarah Palin and Hugh Hewitt are both enraged at the decision to list polar bears as an endangered species. I’ve followed Hewitt’s bizarre Colbertian horror at protecting polar bears the way I usually follow him, with morbid amusement and fascination. Here’s a classic column from May. Palin’s opposition to protecting the species brought her into conflict with the Bush administration’s Interior secretary:

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne last week made the listing decision and said it was based on three findings. "First, sea ice is vital to polar bear survival. Second, the polar bear’s sea-ice habitat has dramatically melted in recent decades. Third, computer models suggest sea ice is likely to further recede in the future," he said…    

Polar bear researchers fear recent effects of the loss of sea ice on Alaska polar bear populations. A 2006 study by the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that far fewer polar bear cubs in the Beaufort Sea were surviving and that adult males weighed less and had smaller skulls than those captured and measured two decades previously — trends similar to observations in Canada’s western Hudson Bay before a population drop.

A U.S. Geological Survey study completed last year as part of the petition process predicted polar bears in Alaska could be wiped out by 2050.

Kempthorne said last week he considered every point Palin made, and rejected them. However, he sought to limit the economic effect of the decision with the inclusion of "administrative guidance" that said the listing would not be used to create back-door climate policy outside the normal system of political accountability. He said that the threat to polar bears did not come from the petroleum industry.

I’m not sure what Palin’s position on climate change is, but it would be worth asking.

(Photo: Knut by Michael Kappeler/AFP/Getty.)

The convention helped.

Ambinder talks to a few who are blinking in disbelief:

A few are cautiously optimistic that it’ll turn out OK, but most of the strategists and consultants I’ve spoken to, e-mailed with, or read/watched are struggling with it. They expect her to have a good week… and then to crash and burn when she hits the campaign trail as scrutiny catches up with her. "It’s like playing poker blind," one strategist said. Another e-mailed: "Obama’s lack of readiness was THE only way to win."  When these Republicans ask the McCain campaign for guidance, all they hear back is: "She’s more experienced than Obama is."

But the religious base is enthralled. For me, the more I think about it, the more this pick is about McCain’s contempt for Obama. He really seems to think that Palin is as qualified as Obama to be president. If he does, it seems to me he has fatally misjudged the abilities of his opponent. As Clinton did.

Yes, we knew McCain had an ego. We never quite appreciated how vast it was. Yes, Obama is inexperienced in foreign policy. But at least he has thought seriously about it. Do you really believe that Sarah Palin understands the distinctions between Shia and Sunni, has an opinion about the future of Pakistan, has a view of how to exploit rifts within Tehran’s leadership, knows about the tricky task of securing loose nuclear weapons? Does anyone even know if she has ever expressed a view on these matters? Here’s a bleg: can anyone direct me to any statement she has ever made about foreign policy?

The biggest secret of the Bush administration is that they were never serious about national security. Serious leaders do not fabricate intelligence through torture methods borrowed from the Communist Chinese. Serious leaders do not invade foreign countries on dubious intelligence with no plan for an occupation. Serious leaders do not try to manipulate detainee policy for electroal purposes. Serious leaders do not engage in moronic talk of victory or surrender five years after removing a regime.

And now we know something about McCain’s promise: he takes all this even less seriously than Bush.

A reader writes:

You are absolutely on point that the most important aspect of the Palin pick is what it tells us about McCain’s judgment. Picking a VP is one of the first serious, consequential decisions of a presidential candidate. It is somewhat like a parent choosing who will be the guardian of their child in the event of death. The VP isn’t just some vote-grabbing machine – it is the second-highest Constitutional office. For JM to offer this slot to someone with such meagre credentials, whom he hardly even knows is a sign of serious character disturbance.

Oh God. This is now getting officially painful. Just listen to this audio of Palin talking about Iraq. It’s excruciating. She doesn’t "know what the plan is to ever end the war"? She sounds about as informed as someone you would grab off the subway at random. This is how seriously McCain takes foreign policy and war? Here’s the full interview from August 14th. And here’s the quote in more context:

The GOP agenda to ramp up domestic supplies of energy is the only way that we are going to become energy independent, the only way that we are going to become a more secure nation. And I say this, of course, knowing the situation we are in right now — at war, not knowing what the plan is to ever end the war we are engaged in, understanding that Americans are seeking solutions and are seeking resolution in this war effort. So energy supplies and being able to produce and supply domestically is going to be a big part of that.

Her only other mention of Iraq is when she talks about her son:

I have a 19 year old who’s getting ready to be deployed to Iraq. His striker brigade leaves on September 11 of this year. He’s 19 and he’ll be gone for a year. [And so] on a personal level, when I talk about the plan for the war, let’s make sure we have a plan here. And respecting McCain’s position on that too, though.

And:

My son being in a striker brigade in the army has really opened my eyes to international events, and how war impacts everyday Americans like us when we have a child who chooses to enlist and to serve [for] the right reasons.

Here’s what the McCain statement said about her foriegn policy chops:

As the head of Alaska’s National Guard and as the mother of a soldier herself, Governor Palin understands what it takes to lead our nation and she understands the importance of supporting our troops.

If anyone can find any substantive statement of hers on foreign policy, please let me know.

A reader writes:

I don’t see how you can rationally say that picking Palin is unserious but picking Obama is serious. Neither one has a ton of experience. But Palin’s experience is mostly executive, and Obama’s experience is all legislative.  That cuts in her favor.  Moreover, Palin is running for the #2 slot and Obama is running for the #1 slot.  That is fundamental.

It occurs to me that some on the right actually think that Obama is as inexperienced and as trivial a figure as Palin. So ask yourself: could Sarah Palin have run a national election campaign against, say, a machine as powerful as the Bush family, and won? Does she have the skill set to construct a campaign that would actually have brought her to the nomination herself? I find the comparison with Obama ludicrous. But it will be made. Palin looks to me like a lovely person and a good local politician, with some inevitable rough spots. I’d be delighted if she took a leadership role in the GOP in the future. But in the same league as Obama? Do Republicans really think that little of him?

I guess they do. We are looking at a different person.

An Alaskan reader writes:

Actually, Sarah Palin’s children are not named for television characters. Willow is a town in Alaska and Piper is for an aircraft. Bristol is also for a place in Alaska and Trig is for a family member. Track is named for where he was conceived. This is the story that has been running around AK for ages. I’m sure her office will release some statement on the kid’s names but no, the names are not at all from a television show.

He was conceived on a track? Pray tell some more …

It gets better:

— Stevens and Young, redux. She has distanced herself from the state’s two most popular politicians, but both appeared at Palin fundraisers during her 2006 gubernatorial bid.

— The environment. As governor, Palin vetoed wind power and clean coal projects, including a 50-megawatt wind arm on Fire Island and a clean coal facility in Healy that had been mired in a dispute between local and state governments.

— And, maybe, censorship. According to the Frontiersman newspaper, Wasilla’s library director Mary Ellen Emmons said that "Palin asked her outright if she could live with censorship of library books.” Palin later dismissed the conversation as a “rhetorical” exercise.

So one tenth of her campaign financing in 2002 was from oil company bosses, she’s being investigated by her own legislature for a scandal where she appointed a sexual harasser, she vetoed wind and clean coal energy projects, and wanted to impose Christianist censorship on public libraries. I mean: did anyone even vet her?

It’s useful to judge the veep picks as an insight into how the two presidential candidates make decisions. A reader sums it up:

Looking at these two events, what do we see?  Obama is cautious, conservative and highly deliberative in his approach.  McCain is a risk-taker, indeed, even a bit rash.

In a world of Jihadist terror, resurgent great power politics, and proliferating WMDs, who are you more comfortable with? And how eager are you to roll the dice?