If blogging success is to be measured in number of hits, I had my best week ever last week. Personally, I think the ultimate blog success is if someone comes along and offers you a book deal. That’s what happened to the folks at Stuff White People Like and to Susan Isaacs, whose blog turned into Angry Conversations With God. She uses the “F” bomb with God—they must be really close for her to get away with that!
For me, blogging is my writing exercise. That’s why I christened this blog with such a silly name. Blogs that have a theme are the ones that become books. This blog does not have a theme. It just has snippets from the radio stations that play in my head.
A word about Sarah Palin: What has happened or is happening with her family is ultimately secondary, though I do maintain that if she is not telling the truth about baby Trig, that’s indicative of a grave flaw. What is relevant is that Sarah truly has no significant federal-level experience, no foreign policy experience, no economic chops (other than chopping line items off the Alaska budget. But unlike the nation as a whole, Alaska has a surplus).
I’m not a Republican, yet I still find McCain and Co.’s pick of Sarah Palin most disconcerting. It brings me back to 1980, when I was completely convinced that Reagan’s presidency was the “Presidency-by-committee” model. It’s been widely reported that John McCain wanted to pick Joe Lieberman to be his running mate. The fact that he didn’t, and instead went with someone he barely knew, is most disconcerting. Yes, that’s a link to an excellent Andrew Sullivan article, which in turn has links to two key Anchorage Daily News articles about Palin’s (ahem) pregnancy with Trig (one of which I linked to already). Here’s the other one.
If we’re considering the completely absurd, then I must point out that I would make a better running mate for McCain. My dad was a naval officer who served in Vietnam. I spent a lot of my formative years on military bases overseas, including two years in Panama, where John McCain was born. I’ve had and used a passport for 40 years (that’s 39 more years than Sarah Palin). I have a Master’s degree in theology, so I can speak cogently to the religious right. I have taken a position of leadership in the local chapter of a national organization that had a deficit. Over a four-year period, my team and I retired the deficit, balanced the budget, and I left office with a surplus. (Never mind that it was PTA; Sarah did far worse as mayor.) I have 20+ years experience working in a multi-cultural setting. And if you really want to stretch it even farther, I might even appeal to some because my great-grandmother was a Castilian Spaniard born in Peru. She married my great-grandfather while he was down there drilling oil off the coast. See, I even have an oil connection, fergawshsakes!
But maverick McCain picked Sarah Palin, not me. Still, it’s entirely possible that while exploring the Internet last week, Andrew Sullivan visited this blog. At this point, that would be the greater compliment.
West Coast Grrlie Blather 