statistically dead guy with pet barracuda

So Senator McCain has chosen Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

Of course he chose a woman. And I'm not saying that to dog Governor Palin or any other woman running for office, but what an obvious bit of strategery there, Mr. McCain. Choose a woman to entice the (now-satisfied, thanks to the Pageantry of Denver) female population to throw their votes your way in November. A woman who has won her reputation as Sarah Barracuda by fighting with members of her own party? By forcing other public servants to resign their positions? This is me, totally not surprised at all.

Governor Palin is being painted by the media as being the tip of the right wing. She's a card-carrying lifetime member of the NRA. The right to bear arms is very important, but it's equally important to keep the big guns off the streets, and out of the hands of career criminals. One of her goals is to overturn Roe v. Wade. I'm not a fan of abortion, but I'm way less of a fan of the back-alley-use-of-a-coat-hanger procedures that would run rampant in this country if abortion was once again illegal. I think abstinence is a good idea, and I have learned the effects of not practicing abstinence. Is abstinence-only education the way to go? Does trying to make sex taboo to a bunch of horny teenagers really work? Does making anything taboo to any sort of teenager really serve as a deterrent? Underage drinking...sex...drugs...hmmmm. Maybe not.

The thing about Governor Palin that makes it really difficult to understand how she came to be the Vice-presidential candidate is her lack of experience. All Senator McCain has been saying about Senator Obama is, "Who has the experience to lead?" Respectfully, Senator McCain, you're pretty old. A study in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine released data on occupations and mortality rates for white men in the United States. Physicians were the oldest, with an average age of 73.0 years, lawyers were 72.3, all examined professionals had an average age of 70.9 years, and all men had an average age of 70.3 at the time of their deaths. Really, sir, you have already exceeded your life expectancy. To top that, you want us to vote for you, knowing that statistically you died two years ago, so that your running mate, whose longest held political office was mayor of a town, population 8,000, can be the Actual President? When you actually die? Is there any point in examining Governor Palin's experience with, say, foreign policy? Or did she and the mayor of the neighboring towns get together one summer and plan their fireworks display? That's foreign for a mayor, no?

On behalf of the part of the country that is not located on the tip of the right wing, I would like to extend my most sincere gratitude to Senator McCain for making it even easier to decide which way to cast my ballot. Statistically dead guy with an aspersion-casting barracuda? Not for me, thanks.