Drop Out. Withdraw your name from consideration. Take your glasses and go home. We won’t be mad Sarah. I promise America won’t think any less of you, we won’t call you a quitter, I promise. The only caveat is you must drop out now, and it must be because you realize you are not qualified to be the Vice-President under John McCain, a man voted most-likely-to-die-in-office in a survey of 112 senators that I just made up.
You burst onto the scene over two weeks ago out of relative obscurity, and you’ve been cloaked in mystery since then. Your convention speech stirred up raw conservative emotions and let the base know that McCain had not forgotten about them. Journalists (I use that term loosely these days) scrambled to get the first interview with you, and you chose the hard hitting giant pussy Charlie Gibson. I can understand why you chose him of course. After watching Gibson and George Stephanopoulos moderate one of the worst debates in recent memory a few months ago, you figured you would have an easy interview, and for the most part, you did.
However, Governor Palin, you are not running for governor of Alaska, or mayor of Wasilla anymore. You are seeking this country’s second highest office and your knowledge of all things in this world seemed like you would barely qualify to sit on a local school board. When asked very calmly her opinion on the Bush Doctrine, Palin froze like the embryos used in stem-cell research. She asked Gibson “in what respect, Charlie?” When pressed again for an answer, Palin asked for clarification and said “his [Bush's] world view?”
While that may rank as your most embarrassing moment of the interview, it certainly was not the only thing that made me America question your credibility. When asked if you had ever met a foreign head of state, you defended the fact that you hadn’t by claiming many vice-presidents probably had not met a foreign head of state before taking office. Fail. Over the last 30 years, every single vice-presidential nominee on both sides of the aisle had met a foreign head of state before taking office.
Palin’s interview wasn’t all substance of course; there was some fun, light moments as well. Did you know, for instance, that from Alaskan land, you can look and see Russian land? In fact, I did know that, but I did not know that qualified you as an expert on Russian and U.S. relations.
So Governor Palin, I ask you, on behalf of a country that deserves better, on behalf of a country which can not afford for a person like you to ascend to such an office, on behalf of a country which has a self-destructive fascination with seeing ordinary folks reach extraordinary heights, on behalf of a country in desperate need of repair, please drop out now. Your family needs you more than my family does.
