Initial response on Palin

Today John McCain introduced Sarah Palin, the current governor of Alaska, as his running mate. In a few short minutes of completely insufficient research, here is what I have found.

• She is younger than Barack Obama, and has less experience.
• She has five children, one of whom is going to Iraq, and one of whom has Down's Syndrome. The one going to Iraq is named "Track," so she obviously is either cruel or insane.
  
• She has been governor for less than two years, and before that was a 2-term mayor a town of less than 6,000 people. In between her last term as mayor and her election as governor, she lost a bid for the lieutenant governor spot, and served as an appointed official for then-Governor Frank Murkowski.
• From Wikipedia: "Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she served from 2003 to 2004 until resigning in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest." Read that again. She resigned as an ethics commissioner because people weren't ethical.
• She is currently in trouble for trying to use her position as governor to get her sister's ex-husband fired.
• Her husband works for British Petroleum.
• She comes from Alaska, the only state to rival Illinois for corruption in government.

What to look for:

• No one will be allowed to say anything bad about her during the election, because she's just a poor defenseless woman and it isn't gentlemanly to pick on girls. Joe Biden will have to play Mr. Nice Guy at the debate. The McCain campaign will play the gender issue on both sides. The GOP will pride itself on picking a dynamic young woman as its vice presidential candidate, who is perfectly qualified despite having negligible political experience, in a state that resembles little of the rest of the country. However, despite being every bit as qualified as a man for the job, it's off-limits to challenge her character, her credentials, or her political beliefs because she's just a girl. Anyone who does so would clearly be a misogynist. I cannot roll my eyes any harder.*
  
• The Obama camp has a HUGE opening with the political firing scandal to compare that to the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, and continue his "four more years of the same" tactic.
  

*[Someone asked if I was being sarcastic in this paragraph, so let me clarify. Yes, I am. I think Palin is not only qualified but obligated to defend everything she thinks and says to the country. I think she should be pressed and needled about her beliefs at every turn, just like anyone running for public office. But considering how often people have dug out the "cut him some slack, he's a POW" defense for McCain (where Rudy had 9/11 Tourette's, McCain has developed POW Tourette's) I fully expect them to make insinuations to the effect of "cut her some slack, this is all new, and besides, it's not polite to pick on a nice Christian woman." My response is that democracy is not about cutting your leaders slack, it's about ruthlessly cracking the whip and making them do their jobs right.]