The Worst Vice-Presidential Nominee in U.S. History

[joreth]

I'm not even going to touch on the absolute horror of Sarah Paulin's beliefs - the fact that she is a member of a church that supports the militant group that is basically the Christian al-Queda, she's against a woman's right to choose (not just abortion, but birth control too), she's abstinence-only, she's a fucking ID proponent, and she tried to pass off her daughter's teenage illigitimate birth as her own (and poorly, I might add).  Here's an article from someone who actually once believed that McCain was a good choice as Republican candidate and why choosing Sarah Paulin is the worst thing McCain could have done WITHOUT even getting into the obvious "crazier than a shithouse rat" beliefs (all underlining emphasis mine):

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/the-worst-vice-presidenti_b_122491.html

An article by a MCCAIN SUPPORTER:

"Selecting Sarah Palin as its choice for a vice presidential candidate is perhaps the worst such choice in American History. To be fair, maybe there are worse choices, but I don't know how bad William O. Butler was when he ran with Lewis Cass against Zachary Taylor.

But it's far worse than Dan Quayle, who was a sitting senator. Worse even than Geraldine Ferraro, who at least served in Congress for three-terms. And far worse than William Miller, a choice so obscure when selected by Barry Goldwater that he (honestly) later did an American Express commercial asking, "Do you know me?" And that ad was after the election. But even Miller had been a Congressman for 12 years. And been a prosecutor during the Nuremberg War trials against Nazis. Sarah Palin lists her credits as a hockey mom.
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And so I felt that John McCain, for all his weaknesses, was the lesser of all evils and was glad he got the nomination. Throw that out the window. McCain-Palin is an unthinkable disaster. ... It's always said that the most important decision a presidential candidate makes is their pick for vice president. It shows their thinking and judgment. John McCain, in his first decision, has just told the world that he believes Sarah Palin is the most qualified person to be a heartbeat from the presidency. ... it's near-impossible to look at the list and suggest to the American public that Sarah Palin is the best choice of Republican women to be vice president. And again, this is ignoring the men he who could have been chosen.
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It's not that Sarah Palin is inexperienced. It's that this is gross political misconduct. ... on a grassroots political level, her nomination takes away the Republicans' ONLY weapon in the campaign - calling Barack Obama inexperienced. .. She has so little experience that she makes Sen. Obama look like FDR, Winston Churchill and Julius Caesar combined. ... All they have is "Dear Democratic women: please pretend our VP candidate is Hillary Clinton. Just forget that she's pro-life. And against most things Democrats stand for."
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What this does in the most profound and grandiose way possible is give lie to John McCain's pompous posturing that he Always Puts America First. And that undercuts the most prominent campaign issue of his entire career, that everything he does is for reasons of honor. There is nothing honorable about making Sarah Palin your vice presidential nominee. Nothing. Unless you define honor as "blatantly pandering."
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when people around the nation were waiting to hear about Sarah Palin's qualifications and gravitas to be Vice President of the United States, the first five minutes of her speech were spent talking about her husband being a champion snowmobiler. ... In the end, the only case she herself made for being on the ticket was praising Hillary Clinton! That's it, period. Now, it might be enough to attract some women -- but it doesn't make a case for the ticket. Why? Hint: some women did vote for Hillary Clinton solely because she was a woman. But most women voted for Hillary Clinton because she was a Democrat, as well as a woman, who stood for important Democratic values they seriously believed in. ... And, in the end, it all focuses back on Barack Obama, with his indictment of eight years of the Bush Administration and of John McCain's flawed judgment - and John McCain's defense of all that. "

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What the religious fundies don't seem to understand is that Argument From Authority is a logical fallacy.  They do this same stuff when trying to discredit science.  They campaign to find any quote at all that can be attributed to a "scientist" that will seem to imply that the scientist believes in god.  That we all embraced his scientific notions because he's a "scientist", so therefore we should embrace his "religious" notions because he's an authority figure.  That's not how it works.  It's the CLAIM, not the person.

The same thing goes with gender issues.  Feminists and egalitarians want a woman in positions of political authority, sure.  But we don't want them in positions of authority because we think the shape of their genitals is important.  We want them in positions of authority because the shape of their genitals is IRRELEVANT.  Which means, we do not want a woman in office because she's a woman, we want a QUALIFIED PERSON in office and we do not want QUALIFIED WOMEN to be overlooked.

Sarah Palin is just flat out not qualified.  From her lack of experience to her values and beliefs that threaten to undermine the very system our nation was founded on, she is not qualified to be second in command to the leader of our country.

And she's a disgrace to both women and men everywhere.

*Edit: leora has done quite a bit of early research on just who Palin is and what she stands for, plus some rather insightful musings on her interpretations of the early data.  Check out her journal for more information.  This was mainly a rant and to point out that even the Republicans don't like her.