Raining on the Democratic Parade

I had such mixed feelings when I learned of the announcement of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as McCain's running mate. The country hadn't fully processed the final speech of the Democratic convention when it was awarded with the historical announcement of a woman as vice-president on the Republican ticket. My first thought was that the choice was just too cynical, an attempt to woo all those die-hard Hillary Clinton supporters who don't think the party behind the person is important. And I also thought that the choice was evidently meant to make John McCain look like a maverick again in order to woo independent voters. And, who knows, it might work.

I would have a lot more respect for John McCain's choice of a woman as a running mate if he had chosen someone like Olympia Snowe. In short, my pithy and immediate response is WTF!

Over the past eight years, as I became increasingly angered and saddened by the decisions of the Bush administration, I also became more cynical. I have been worried that I would turn into a misanthrope. I've just been so distressed that too many people don't seem to care about the Bush administration's disregard of our privacy, of our constitution, of our national and democratic values. So we incarcerate people for years without giving them access to a lawyer? So we torture people now? So we eavesdrop on private conversations and troll e-mail and telephone conversations of millions of people? So we let millions of Americans live on the brink of disaster because they don't have access to healthcare? So we abandon a southern city in the middle of a devastating hurricane and then, finally, months and months later provide mobile homes that are health hazards? So we abandon diplomacy, bullying and blustering our way around the world?

Though I want a Democratic president, I would be a less worried citizen if John McCain were really a maverick and were planning to make major changes in the ways this country has been governed in the past eight years. But McCain's campaign choices and rhetoric have echoed that of the Bush administration. Choosing a little known woman as a dark horse running mate does nothing to alleviate my concerns.