I wanted to like Sarah Palin. Her ascension to the nation stage gave hope for a believable pro-life official high in the McCain administration. Many of my Facebook friends have become avid Sarah Palin fans. My family excitedly supports the McCain/Palin ticket. The pro-life blogosphere continues to celebrate. After hearing of her personal story, I hoped that I would learn more about her that would give me cause to cheer for her as an executive, even if I couldn’t support the McCain ticket. She’s now given a number of theatrical speeches and one major theatrical interview – not a lot to go on when assessing the readiness of someone for the Vice Presidency, but it’s about all I’ve got, and what I’ve seen so far has not endeared me to this rising star.
Yes, I still believe Palin would fight fiercely to help outlaw abortion. She stated to Gibson that Roe should be overturned and that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest—she would keep it legal in cases where the life of the mother is in jeopardy. She used the term “personal opinion” in speaking of her stance on abortion, but I sense that she would “impose” her personal opinion on the country. She also, to my liking, expressed the need to understand and work with those who see the abortion issue differently. I suspect her rhetoric of “personal opinion” and “understanding” was meant to calm the fears of pro-choice voters. We’ll see, but for now, I think she’s as anti-abortion as she says she is.
What I find so objectionable (aside from the repeated dishonesty of the McCain/Palin campaign) is her foreign policy views—or what she is presenting as her foreign policy views. From what I’ve read, I gather that prior to her selection as McCain’s VP candidate, Palin hadn’t given much thought to matters of war and foreign policy. Now she’s receiving on-the-job training from McCain advisors. While I’d expect her to follow McCain’s lead on policy, we the voters should nevertheless know her thought on foreign policy. Given that her foreign policy views are largely unknown, Palin has an obligation to air those views, however basic or advanced they are. Otherwise, we voters have an insufficient basis on which to evaluate her competency for the office. She could become president, after all. What she’s presented as her views may be hers or they may be statements McCain advisors told her to say. I will assume they are hers, at least in so far as they are the views she would espouse as the Vice President. If they are not really her views, well then I think in this she’s so far failed in her responsibility to the voters.
In her interview with Gibson, we’ve learned that Palin would perhaps go to war with Russia over NATO members, that she’ll unquestionably support whatever Israel does in the name of its defense, that she thinks Russia was unprovoked in its invasion of Georgia, that we can ignore the boundaries and sovereignty of other nations because, in her words, “in order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.”
We’ve learned that Palin believes the top priority of the president is to defend the United States of America, whatever it takes and without blinking, meaning that for Palin safety is a higher priority than justice—meaning that Palin, if she follows her priorities, will sacrifice justice for safety. We’ve learned that Palin buys into the Bush policy of ridding “the world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation,” only she implies that McCain will do a better job of it. McCain shares this policy view as well, and has spoken of it in terms of defeating evil itself. Does Palin realize that ridding the world of terrorists is impossible? A war to do that fails a key criteria for a just war. McCain says he hates war, but his and Palin’s response to terrorism is predicated on perpetual war. Palin also seems to think that the terrorists hate us because of our freedom. You don’t have to be Noam Chomsky to know that our meddling in the Middle East, right or wrong, provokes hatred and violence. Bin Laden broadcast his motives for the 9/11 attacks; has Palin bothered to understand the mind of our enemy? Doesn’t sound like it. She couldn’t say what the Bush doctrine was either.
I anticipate that someone will point out to me that far more innocent lives have been lost these past years from abortion than from the War on Terror, including the Iraq War, and that therefore, even if McCain and Palin have a war problem, that problem pales in comparison to Obama’s ardent stance on abortion. Abortion has killed millions, whereas our recent wars have killed, so far as we know, thousands. Comparing Obama and McCain on this presents a false dichotomy. Even if he overturns Roe, McCain isn’t going to save a million lives. The conflict over abortion will return to the States for a time until the pro-choice movement succeeds in remaking it a federal issue. Some lives may be saved in that interim period, and that’s good, but abortions will continue in most States during that time. We don’t know how many unborn lives will be saved by a McCain/Palin presidency, nor do we know how many deaths will result from its wars. Nevertheless, it is nowhere near inconceivable that a war with Iran or Russia or whomever could result in millions of deaths. What McCain and Palin do in foreign policy could turn out to be more powerful than what they do to promote a culture of life. In any case, I’m not willing to give her a free pass just because she’s against abortion.
At this point, knowing what little information we’ve been given about this candidate, I have to say thanks, but no thanks to the Palin candidacy.
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