Sarah Palin as George Bush

by Janet Ritz

Published on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In a polemic penned by George Bush's former speechwriter, Sarah Palin attempted to define Barack Obama as her equal and John McCain as above them both, while avoiding any subject of substance.

Sorry, Sarah, that husky don't hunt.

Palin's (Matthew Scully's) speech revealed a surprising parallel to George Bush -- albeit with phonetic care given to the correct pronunciation of certain words -- in her bid to become vice president to an aging politician with a history of health problems amid a pointed lack of relevance to the issues at hand and a cynical willingness to distort the truth.

The RNC talking points/heads are now questioning the media for pointing out that Palin's speech was written by Bush's former speechwriter (who'd only met her a week before).

What about the democrats, they charge; are you asking them who writes their speeches???

The answer, in the case of Barack Obama, at least -- since he was the focus of Scully's speech -- is that Barack Obama is the primary writer of his own speeches, a point the RNC has made many times in their attempts to denigrate his abilities as both a writer and speaker.

As for Senator Biden, no one can accuse him of not speaking his mind or of not caring about women's issues, given that he was the driving force behind the Violence Against Women Act.

What was missing from Scully's speech for Palin, aside from actual support for women's issues, was any discussion of policy, any mention of current events; no compassionate conservatism about the huge ice sheet -- the size of Manhattan -- that just broke loose in the Arctic; the approach of Hurricane Ike that has already swelled to a Category 4; the wolves she rewards her constituents for shooting; the fact that she does not believe in man-made global warming; her support for the teaching of creationism in schools; her opposition to equal pay, access to health care and those pesky books she wanted banned from libraries...

[Former Wasilla mayor] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

Those who question Palin's policies do not receive an answer to their questions, while any concern about her qualifications as a future commander-in-chief are dismissed as sexism. That's silly, of course. Especially when the only information her speechwriter has offered constitutes identity politics and divisive attacks on community organizers, parroting a new campaign by Rush Limbaugh to define such community organizers, many of whom are ethnic in background, as "radical activists."

Are we to accuse the RNC and their media allies of racism?

Or perhaps it's conservative elitism: We don't need no stinking "radical activists" stirring up disenfranchised ethnic communities and getting them to demand a fair shake.

Translation: Let them eat cake.

If we can't ask about a potential candidate's qualifications, what have we become? Not a democracy, that's for sure. And that leads to the parallel to George Bush; the president who used signing orders to circumvent the constitution while he took his marching orders from his vice president.

Wait a minute.

What would happen if Sarah Palin ended up as president during McCain's term? Would she, with her absolute dearth of foreign policy and supposed lack of Washington experience (supposed because Palin's gubernatorial campaign ads were paid for by the Washington-based Republican Governor's Association funded primarily by Jack Abramoff's company) be allowed to pick just anyone as her vice president?

That's the question I want to ask: Sarah, who would you pick as your vice president?

Would we see an equivalent to Dick Cheney, someone put in there by the powers that be to actually run things according to their agenda, given that the person at the top is woefully unaware of foreign policy, is disengaged from the everyday problems of the electorate and seems to do as she's told?

Sarah Palin as George Bush.

My question is this: Who is her Dick Cheney?