Politics.

I don't normally discuss politics on my blog, but here's a quick thought:

I'm an independent. I like John McCain. I like him a lot. I've been heavily leaning towards Obama for a long time. But there are a few things that McCain could have perhaps done to persuade me. Picking Lieberman as a running mate would have been one of them.

However, now that he's picked Palin, I'm kinda repulsed. I think Palin is kind of exactly like George W. Bush. Somebody with respectable ideals that if placed in the presidency would be out-classed by those surrounding them. Lately I've been thinking that I don't think George W. Bush has been the active purveyor of what's happened during the last 8 years of his administration. I've been feeling like his administration has been more tragic: he got sucked up by a bunch of bad advisors, his dad's old cronies, and he didn't know what to make of what they said or was not in a position to be able to contradict them. So his presidency has failed on so many levels precisely because he wasn't adept at leading. From where I sit as an average joe Amercian citizen, based on things like the bungled war on terrorism because of people like Rumsfeld and Cheney, it looks like he's not capable of saying (or at least at key junctures didn't stand up and say): "Person X I respect you but I'm not going to follow your advice right now, because I strongly believe in Z."

My biggest fear about Palin right now in this moment is that she'd be exactly the same way. She seems to be a very honorable person. But I don't see anything in her political CV that seems to say that she'd have the ability to discern between competing voices for her attention and then make the right choice, much like George W. Bush didn't. And I think more than anything that's what scares me the most: in the event of a (heaven forbid) McCain death in office, we'd be left with another George W. Bush-like president. I don't think we can handle any more of that in the next couple of terms.

However, this is just an impression after having known who this woman is for a week. I'd be happy to reconsider my impression of her upon weighing better evidence.