Liam

If this is vetting, then I'd really hate to see what a President McCain would do with a national security briefing that contradicts a conclusion he's already made. Get real. She's a small state governor who is on record as having no interest in global matters. She has no positions on domestic affairs. Her only knowledge of the surge comes from what she learned on the local news. Her main position on Iraq is solely about having an exit strategy (contrary to McCain's). She is on record as having lied about the poster-child of bad government pork (the bridge to nowhere), but then she took the money and spent it on the road to the bridge to nowhere. Look it up. She is under investigation for abusing the power of her political office to settle an internal family score. She is on record as having no idea what the VP does. This possible future commander in chief got her first passport at age 43 when she went to visit those Alaska National Guard troops under her command in Kuwait -- which was her national security bona fide per the GOP. And now an underage, unwed pregnant teenage daughter. This was the candidate who passed McCain's stringent vetting process? Cripes, what was in Mike Huckabee's closet if she passed the test and he didn't??? This is not about Palin. She is who she is. She may be lovable for all her faults, she may be vilified for the idiocy of her policy positions. Frankly, part of me wants to like her, but this isn't about her. The past 72 hours says all you need to know about the impulsive, sloppy, radical, imbalanced and irrational nature of the McCain campaign and, by extension, his potential presidency. His political calculations makes him as bad as the Clintons, for god's sake. Actually, worse, because the Clintons actually appointed effective people. It must be very reassuring to know that someone like McCain is going to be appointing similarly qualified and similarly vetted people in his administration. We've already had eight years of "deciders" directing policy decisions to fit political needs. McCain is only showing himself to be more like Bush than ever. This is enough. So, yes, pat yourself and McCain on the back for picking someone the evangelicals will love on election day. How fantastic. But look inside and ask what you'd be saying if Obama's vetting process and his choice for VP was equally risky. Seriously, what would your reaction be?

So when are the evangelical preachers going to come out to say that Gustav was a sign from God that the people who live in those areas are wicked, that he sent Gustav to punish them for smiting Him? Oh, forgot: it's an election year and it's mostly impacting Republicans.

I wish this discussion would get away from abortion, particularly as it applies to Palin and her own life choices. It's a total canard and, frankly, whether or not Palin decided to have her child and/or how she decided to act during her pregnancy is her own damn business. Isn't that what "choice" is about?!

I am still waiting for someone on the conservative end of the spectrum to tell me that Palin was fully investigated and vetted by the McCain campaign and that she still represents the best he could have done. Anyone?

No, I don't concede that picking Rice, Ridge or Romney would have doomed the GOP to failure. I don't concede that picking Palin will doom them to failure, either. McCain's one weakness was among evangelicals and I will admit none of the three I named would have been particularly loved by evangelicals, HOWEVER, the arguments in their favor were not insurmountable. Polling before and during the primary showed that southern evangelicals had an unusually high regard for Rudy Giuliani, a man who dumped his wife on TV, is a Catholic, had an extra-marital affair, is estranged from his kids, and who has dubious positions on abortion and gay marriage. Why the love for Rudy? Because he was perceived as being strong on national defense and because he took the threat of terrorism seriously. The GOP could have made a serious play for evangelicals along the lines of national defense and being a steady hand in a troubled world. Evangelicals, when faced with Obama-Biden v. McCain-Ridge... do you think they'd have stayed home on election day? Particularly if some skirmish arises in the world, say tensions between Iran and Israel, between now and November?? With Palin on the ticket, McCain has seriously eroded his "steady hand" argument should an international crisis arise. Sure, everyone will look to see what the top of the ticket says about global events, but the follow up question will continue to gnaw away -- what if this happened while Sarah Palin was in the Oval Office? About Jindal v Palin, I would argue Jindal was overlooked primarily because he lacked an XX chromosomal makeup. McCain wants to give voters who want the visual of change a way of getting something fresh without having to vote for Obama. Palin gives some on the margins their own way of making history without voting Dem. The second reason Jindal's was by-passed was his race. I'm not saying McCain is racist, what I'm saying is that McCain opted for a kind of diversity (gender diversity) than that offered by the Dem ticket (racial diversity). Now, as for celebrity... I wouldn't say it's fame or celebrity, what it comes down to between Palin and Jindal is that Jindal is more of a known quantity. The GOP prides itself on rewarding and elevating quality, of being a meritocracy. Jindal has been in the news for years as someone on the rise. People know more about him. He's familiar. He'd have been as a good a pick for electoral reasons and would have been a far superior pick for governing reasons. Palin comes in from left field, giving the appearance that this is a move of desperation and not a serious continuation of the GOP's claims of merit. Just about everyone I know who is a McCain supporter is dumbfounded by her elevation from obscurity. I acknowledge her electoral successes and I've said people underestimate her at her peril. I think she will surpass peoples' expectations (but then, the bar is set so low for her that you could trip over it). What I object to is that McCain has plucked from obscurity and is trusting with all our futures someone who has not even shown the slightest bit of interest in national or international issues. THE issue of the McCain campaign, up until Friday was national security. By picking Palin, McCain is conceding that was a lie. What mattered to McCain in his VP selection was not national security or putting the US in trusted and seasoned hands, it was shoring up his religious base. It was about exciting evangelicals. And the fact that evangelicals and many within the GOP are having a Palin love-fest (seriously, has anyone questioned her credentials or McCain's wisdom???) shows that religious orthodoxy trumps national security as the more important issue for national GOP candidates.

It appears some true conservatives have finally started coming to their senses about McCain's decision: http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0830hm.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postparti...id=opinionsbox1

You'll get no argument from me on anything you said. Biden will need to be very smart about their debate.

As you can probably tell from the length of my posts, I'm a lawyer. Anyhow, in my trial practice class, a law professor used to say that the most powerful conclusion is one a juror makes after you give him no other choices. I think the best way to make the "heartbeat away" argument stick is not to actually articulate it, but to dismantle her and let the people at home think "holy sh_t! this is the woman who's one heartbeat away from the Oval Office?!"

I think the "heartbeat away" approach is wrong. First, it didn't work with Quayle and it runs the risk of making Palin a sympathetic character. Like we need more carping about the old boys network piling on a woman. I think the best approach with Palin in to treat her as seriously as you would treat Dick Cheney, but to pull her apart based on her extremist positions. Point out that she opposes birth control even by married people. Point out that she left her town of 9000 people with a budget deficit of $20 million. Point out ehr flip flops on federal spending on bridges to nowhere. Point out that she wants to have intelligent design and creationsim taught in the public schools. Point out that she once asked about censoring the library books in her town's library. Point out that she wants polar bears removed from the endangered species list. Point out that she doesn't believe polution and population growth or burning of rain forests have anything to do with global warming. If she's her party's VP nominee, you have to show respect above all else and it would be demeaning to everyone to be disrespectful. There are plenty of substantive and issues-based arguments to be made against McCain/Palin. If you destroy her on the issues, the "heartbeat away" matter will take care of itself.

The best answer I can give is that, as with your response to my proposition of Rice and Ridge, it's a purely academic question. But I will try to provide an actual answer, or maybe an opinion is the better way of saying it. The one potential candidate of equal "youth" on McCain's list was Bobby Jindal, the first term governor of Louisiana. If he had been selected, I think the reaction would be surprise and I think it would be taken more seriously. But not because he's a man and because Palin is a woman. Jindal would be taken more seriously because he served in Congress, ran his state's university system, defeated the sitting Democrat governor of Louisiana, was a protege of the Bush White House, is considered incredibly brilliant and is widely talked about as THE next best hope of the GOP, all by his mid-30's. In short, he's got a name and a bit of a track record and a national reputation. Palin doesn't. Frankly, yes, if Palin was a second term governor of if she was widely known as a potential senator or a national spokesperson on certain political issues, if she was occasionally on "Meet the Press" or some of the political/news programs as a known commodity, no one would question McCain's selection process. As it stands, she has been in statewide office for 18 months, prior to which her biggest job was mayor of a small town. She's currently under investigation for using her office to get her former brother-in-law's boss fired. She's also on record as having lied about it that abuse of power. She is also on record as being in favor of the infamous bridge to nowhere but is now saying she was against earmarks all along. She is also on record as saying she doesn't know what the VP job would entail and she's on record as having called Hillary a whiner (not good if you want to woo disaffected women). She's on record as having no knowledge of international matters, the surge or her own party's (and her candidate's) position on the Iraq war, veteran's matters or the eventual "exit strategy" from Iraq. People within the Alaska GOP have stated that if there was *any* vetting of her going on, it was incredibly stealthy because no one was ever asked by the McCain campaign about her. How serious was McCain's vetting of her? That's the joke, not Palin the person. She could very well prove to be a shrewd politician (actually, I think she will be), but McCain's taking such an enormous risk is what strikes some people as puzzling at best and possibly suicidal at worst.

I agree -- Minnesota was once solid blue, but it is now much closer to being a swing state. It is for the Dems what Virginia is becoming for the GOP: a once reliable state that, depending on national trends and some internal state matters, could be flipped.

Many of you would probably think I'm a liberal, but I don't see what the big deal is about gun ownership. I don't think the 2nd Amendment was designed nor intended to mean society should be the O-K Corral, but our interpretation of the amendment and gun laws pretty much leaves the issue of gun ownership immutable. I would be more interested in severly punishing the criminal use of guns, but I see nothing wrong with owning guns.

I'm sure much to McCain's relief, I heard that neither Bush nor Cheney will be in Minnesota during the week of the convention.

Time will tell whether or not her critics will twist in the wind. But time will also tell if the one twisting in the wind will be McCain. Your failure to even consider a negative outcome to this selection shows that anything you say is purely partisan spin and not to be taken seriously. Palin may prove to be a decent campaigner and a quick study, and I would caution anyone from underestimating her. Frankly, expectations for her are so low that all she has to do from now to November is not slip in dog sh_t for GOP spinners to equate that with brilliance. But the lack of even a shred of skepticism or without even acknowledging the risks associated with selecting her (and that it could be McCain's undoing as much as it may be a boon to him) tells me you've abandoned rationality in favor of partisan bravado.

All the points you make about Romney, Ridge and Rice are valid. I didn't say their nomination would be without certain perils, but people would understand their being selected to be VP because each one of them has demontrated a certain capacity and has an established record on either domestic issues (Ridge and Romney as state governors) or international affairs (Ridge as Homeland Security Chief and Rice as NSA Chief and Secretary of State). Any of the three would demonstrate a seriousness and a deliberatemess in McCain's selecting one of them. Sure, they'd be linked to Bush and Romney's primary campaign statements would haunt them in the general election, but people would understand that McCain made a tough call and picked someone he could bring before the people as a trusted hand and proven commodity. I didn't say any of them would win the race for McCain, just that the public could look at any of the three and say, "OK, I could see [Ridge, Romney or Rice] as the VP." I did not say Palin was a joke. I never said anything negative about Palin personally. I said that the feeling I get from most of the people I've spoken to about this is that McCain's selection of her must be some kind of joke. She's not a joke, but McCain's decision that she of all possible candidates is the most qualified strikes a lot of people as somewhat of a joke.

Palin's pregnancy is off limits. Her position on abortion is a valid point of discussion, but leave her personal decisions about her family off the table.

Not true. Obama put himself out there as a candidate to be judged and assessed by the public. By winning his party's nomination, he has passed the test and closed out the experience matter. I'm not saying the GOP wouldn't still raise it, but his grasp of issues and his being vetted and approved by his party makes it a very tough sell -- and now an impossible sell with Palin on the ticket. I just don't know why McCain would throw away his best argument against Obama. News reports out in the past two days seem to indicate that Palin was barely vetted. People within the GOP establishment in Alaska have been quoted as saying that if there was any vetting going on, no one in Juneau, a small town as any, even heard of it. I say these things to question McCain's judgment, not Palin's qualities. I have no problems with Palin as a person. I disagree with her on many issues, like the teaching of creationism in public schools and that birth control should not be used even by married couples. I disagree that abortion should be outlawed in all circumstances and hearing that she once asked the local librarian about censoring books in the public library concerns me. Her complete lack of knowledge about even domestic issues is a huge worry. I'm sure she's a bright and engaging person. But when picking a VP the issue for conservatives should be about the ability to be president. Conservatives always boast that they have higher standards than liberals, that they believe in merit. Palin's nomination shows how hollow that claim is. Palin is the benefactress of identity politics. That's all. Her selection has the potential to be "Heckuva Job Brownie" on steroids. She's not just running FEMA or building levees. She's being put in a position of being on call to step in if McCain dies. Is no conservative even slightly concerned? I have yet to hear a single Republican state unequivocally that Palin was the best choice. They'll say things like it was a bold decision (bold can be bad), or historic (which it obviously is), but no one is praising this choice beyond its impact on November 4th. That scares the hell outta me. Not one person has said they believe she can command our troops in Iraq and be the de facto leader of the free world, the person who is going to take the 3 am call or decide to engage in covert ops in Pakistan. OK, she hunts and fishes and she's a soccer mom and is now governor of her state. What makes her qualified? Conservatives used to be reliable for their skepticism and caution and reason, but they seem to have completely lost credibility in an orgy of denialism. What does her selection say about the man who chose her to be the replacement commander in chief? Palin could probably be a valid candidate for a lesser cabinet position (Interior or Education Secretary, maybe), but any conservative who says she would make a better commander in chief than Tom Ridge or Condi Rice is either lying or is trying to rationalize and justify McCain's reckless decision.

Not true. Not at all. I work in a very red industry but in a very blue state and I can say that the majority response among coworkers and friends is disbelief and concern. This has been the talk of the weekend and I have yet to meet a single person who is happy about Palin. No one. I know several very active Obama supporters -- one I spoke to last night just after she got back from the DNC in Denver. Most would have respected the selection of Tom Ridge or Condi Rice. Mitt Romney would have earned some jokes, but I think people would have understood the pick. Actually, Ridge scared the bejesus out of the Dems I know. Any of those guys (and woman) would make everyone think McCain picked someone who can be trusted in his or her own way. Palin, on the other hand, is viewed with shock. Not shock and awe, just complete shock, like this has to be a joke, right? As I said, I work among very Republican types (admittedly, Wall Streeters and not social conservative) and the overwhelming response is "what was he thinking?" They understand his need to get evangelicals on board, but not one person I've spoken to about this thinks Palin is even remotely qualified to step in to the presidency should she need to. I'd say the overall reaction among the McCain supporters I know is total dismay.

Not true. Obama put himself out there as a candidate and over the past eighteen months has shown himself to have mastered international and domestic issues. His qualifications have been assessed by the people and his election as his party's nominee says that a large number of Americans have decided he meets the commander-in-chief test. Palin, on the other hand, has only received one vote of confidence, and that comes from McCain. I am very troubled by McCain's choice (and I say that as someone who may have voted for him -- not now, no way). First, it tells me that McCain is more interested in winning the election than in protecting the nation's interests (the very charge he made against Obama). Second, it tells me that McCain's arguments of experience, particularly where national security is concerned, were not only baseless and false, but that McCain himself could not have possibly believed them when he made the arguments against Obama. In other words, he's been lying to us all along while on the campaign trail. Third, he met Palin once and based on that one meeting decided she was best qualified to stand in as president should he need to step down. I'm a parent and I couldn't imagine leaving my kids in the custody of someone I met once. But McCain is leaving the US in the custody of a person he barely knows. He's trusting all our futures and our safety in the hand of someone who was barely aware of the Surge in Iraq. And what does it say about McCain when you consider who he passed up?? Palin is better qualified than Condi Rice? Than Tom Ridge or Mitt Romney or even Rudy Giuliani? Colin Powell?!?!?! Lastly, what I find troubling is that conservatives are falling all over themselves regarding this pick. This decision shows recklessness, a lack of seriousness and a lack of sobriety. It shows someone who is willing to gamble with our nation's interests all to win an election. Conservatives don't act that way, or at least they didn't in the past. They are supposed to look at things in a very skeptical way and to be somewhat risk averse. Personal achievement, merit and experience were, at one time, the hallmarks of the conservative movement but the elation over Palin tells me modern conservatism is just one step away from self-destruction. I'm sorry, but I cannot get on board with this pick.

There were a number of GOP pundits who voiced arguments against Bush's re-election in 2004 because of all the messes that would begin piling up in the 04-08 years (increases in defecits, expansion of Social Security payments to retiring baby boomers, increased healthcare costs, not to mention the war). Bush has managed to not fix much of anything in his 2nd term (and his "popularity" reflects this, to an extent). The GOP has to win the presidency if it wants any relevance from 2008-2010 when the mid-terms come up. From 1981 up to and through the 84 election, the GOP played the "remember how bad things were under Carter" card mercilessly. I expect that if the Dems win and control the levers of power in DC, they will borrow that tactic, otherwise they run the risk of taking the blame for everything.

The only people telling us that certain plots have been thwarted are the very ones who want to keep using torture and who have shown, in a variety of ways, why we should not believe much of what they say.

If Hillary is the nominee... I don't think McCain can beat her. McCain has alienated the evangelicals way too much and has lost support of any Republican who considers illegal immigrants a major problem. He's just not liked by too many within his own party and I think having certain GOP voters sit out in some states will cost him a few % points in key states (Florida, for example), leaving those electoral votes to Hillary. Huckabee would carry most of the south against Hillary, but I don't think he'd win a single state north of NC. Assuming the 2004 electoral map is mostly frozen in place, all Hillary would have to do is peel off Ohio (or Colorado and Nevada) and she wins. Hillary's best shot would be against Romney. Christian voters might stay home opening certain states to her (Virginia, Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida). She'd turn several red states blue if Romney was the nominee. I honestly think the strongest GOP candidate (the toughest one for the Dems to beat) is Rudy Giuliani. It's true that evangelicals don't like the guy, but he plays to their interests of fighting jihadists and supporting Israel. If Obama is the nominee... I don't see any Republican (except Rudy) offering much of a fight against Obama. With Rudy, it would an election of hope v fear. I think hope (Obama) could win, particularly if he inspires southern blacks to finally turn out en masse. I believe something I read the other day: that the powers that be in the GOP would rather retain control of a losing party than lose control of the winning party. With a Huckabee win, both the electoral and institutional power of the GOP would shift from the Beltway and Wall Street types (who are not necessarily social conservatives) to the evangelicals. I think those inside the Beltway would give lip service to supporting Huckabee, but Obama would sew up much of the big money donors.

My response assumed the US would primarily be torturing those outisde their ranks (i.e., suspected al Qaeda members, Islamists and captured enemy combatants) and that Islamists would be torturing those outside their ranks (non-Islamists, captured westerners, etc). I further assumed that "your kind" (which is also my kind) falls into the latter group.

I think in my response I made it clear that Bin Laden's inner circle would fall within that very small group of people for whom torture could probably be applied, so "one of his lieutenants" as you asked would be within that group. His family? No. I would think there would likely be ways short of torture to get bin Laden's family members to talk. I think you could start with appeals then move on to real threats of legal action if they didn't budge -- I mean, you would have to have some evidence that a certain family member knew of his whereabouts and were deliberately withholding that info. There could be any number of laws here in the US (and almost certainly dozens of them in their native Saudi Arabia) along the lines of aiding and abetting that you could threaten them with. But even if those appeals to the Bin Laden family member did not work, I do not think it would be right to torture for a variety of reasons. First, they might not have any information to share, and second, like any torture recipient, they could lie just to make you stop even if only for an hour or two.

No one disputes the rightful application of torture in the dirty bomb scenario, but that situation is so incredibly unlikely to ever occur that it's not even worth weighing. Not because there will never be a dirty bomb attack, but because it stretches the imagination to think that we could *know* there is a dirty bomb somewhere *and* we *know* a person in our custody knows so much about the plot that we could knowingly apply torture successfully. I have two problems with torture. First, it reduces the torturing party to sadism -- it becomes the method of preference in terms of info gathering and ultimately corrupts the torturer. Second, torture is perhaps the least reliable method of gathering good information. Someone being tortured will say anything to make the pain stop. Anything. Not necessarily the truth, just anything the torturer wants to hear. When Khalid Sheik Mohammed was tortured, he mentioned dozens and dozens of plots around the world and the CIA went on a wild goose chase looking for evidence of those plots. All turned up empty. The time and energy KSM's torture occupied could have been spent much more wisely by boots-on-the-ground investigating. I have no doubt the US has tortured in the past (and that it will do so in the future), but it ought to be reserved for the most dire of situations and applied to the most select few of known terrorists (NOT to suspects) -- Osama bin Laden and his inner circle, for example. To embrace it as national policy and/or to apply it to routine "enemy combatants" is not only damaging from an international reputation perspective (thereby making our GWOT less winnable) and damaging from an intelligence gathering perspective, but damaging and corrupting from a moral and ethical standpoint.