I Just Can't Leave This One Alone...

I believe that I said a while back that I wasn't going to get into politics.

I lied. Well, technically, I hadn't intended on lying. But this issue has gotten me a little riled up, and you lucky people get to be recipients of my ire.

I'm still stuck on John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for VP. Now, I'm going to leave her daughter out of it because, like Senator Obama has so poignantly said, everybody's children should be off limits. And I think everybody who hops on the Internet and thinks it would be a dandy place to unload their venom should back off, too. After all, it's only going to backfire.

But what's not off limits is Sarah Palin's behavior, her experience, her performance in her past offices, and how that reflects on John McCain's character for choosing her.

For one, I heard this morning on MSNBC that up until a few days before the VP pick was announced, McCain was going to go with Joe Lieberman, until an aide talked him out of it. I mean, come on. I'm not exactly a political maven, but I know that if you take a nonconservative presidential candidate and pair him with a nonconservative vice presidential candidate, then you are not going to make conservative voters very happy. And this, as recent history has shown, has been the base that has made the difference in the last two elections. It has been speculated that he wanted to go with Lieberman because he has a high regard for personal loyalty and wants to be around people he knows well and trusts. So, after being convinced to jettison Lieberman, McCain goes for a candidate that he has met only once, and has received the most cursory vetting process. I believe that in process must've gone something like this:

McCain aide: Ever been arrested?
Palin: Not yet, but my husband has been. DUI. But no one died, that we know about.
McCain aide: Okay, we can overlook that. Either you or your husband having an affair?
Palin: Not that I know of.
McCain aide: How do you feel about the second amendment?
Palin: Wanna see my gun?
McCain aide: Okay, you're in.

It is also being reported (On MSNBC but also on ABC's George Stephanopoulos' blog) that while Palin was mayor, she sucked up every possible earmark from Washington that she could. So much for her much-touted reputation for saving taxpayer money and not being part of the Washington lobbyists' machine.

Wonder if McCain knew about that one?

It is also being reported that while Palin was campaigning for governor, she was all for the "Bridge to Nowhere" project. And when she became governor, she was against it. Sounding familiar?

Now, this dance is on the edge of being personal, but this gives me pause about her ability to do her job and her judgment about her family. Please remember that a feminist is writing this, and I would expect what I'm about to say to apply to a mother or a father. That if you have given birth to a special-needs baby, I don't know that I would go back to work three days after the delivery. If I had a pregnant 17-year-old daughter, I would be a little wary of how I tossed around topics like teaching "abstinence only" in schools. I would also think about this daughter and think about the love and support she will need, and think very hard about taking on such a difficult and time-consuming position as Vice President of the United States. If I were a pregnant 17-year-old and my mother was in such a public position and my growing belly will be the object of everyone's opinion, regardless of any kind of oath the media might have taken to leave me out of it, I would be completely humiliated.

But that's just me.

After all, didn't we hear about poor brave Elizabeth Edwards and how even though she had inoperable and incurable breast cancer, she wanted her husband to go ahead with his campaign? And the media fell all over it. How could this man be so heartless, they said. How could this man run for the highest office in the land when his wife needed him at home? I should know, I was one of them.

In situations like this, the personal blends with the politics. And I don't think it's possible for the personal to be completely excised from the politics.

And let's look at the other side of the political coin. Oh, how the judgment rained down when it was learned that Senator Obama went to this particular church and listen to this particular pastor and didn't immediately renounce him, and how the judgment rained down when the media reported the most tangential association with the former 60s radical? And we argued in the media about what his personal life says about his potential political service, and nobody had a problem with that. Yes, he got a little ruffled when they went after his wife for making so-called "unpatriotic" comments. But that was considered fair game.

And now we're supposed to look the other way when a vice presidential candidate conducts her private life in a way that may influence her public service?

We had the same argument about Bill Clinton, back in the day, back in the day of blue dresses and Kenneth Starr. We talked about compartmentalization, and how it is possible for a man to have personal failings and yet still be a good leader. But the right saw it a completely different way. They couldn't separate the action from the person. And they said that anyone who cheats on his wife would cheat on the country.

And while I have reclaimed my original roots as a Democrat, I do believe that a person is a sum of their parts. And that you can't separate the person from the behavior, and the behavior speaks to personal integrity.

Integrity. We talk about it, we say that certain people haven't or don't have it or that such and such they said points to their personal integrity. But do we really mean it? And is it the same for the right as for the left?

Absolutely not. I've stepped away from my party of origin long enough to see the double standard -- that some behaviors that are tolerated and excused from Democrats are excoriated when performed by Republicans. And I guess that's just the way it works. I'm not going to change it. A politician who claims that he can reach across the aisle is not going to change it. Even having a third party is not going to change it.

I believe it's just the way of human nature. It comes from when we lived in caves. Everybody in your cave, and in your system of connected caves was okay. Everybody else was the enemy. And when religions began to sprout up, some believed they were more holy than others, more worthy of saving, had the moral high ground over everybody else.

So all I'm asking for is a little common sense. Being human is to judge. We select our leaders based not on an internal checklist of sorts, but by the sum of the whole. Do we like this person? Do they share our values? Do we think they have the judgment to lead? If they are in the White House, will I have more money in my wallet? And so on.

So while I can respect leaving the innocentd out of it, you can't expect me to separate a candidate's politics from their personal behavior.