John McCain Insulted Me (And You)

When John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, my gut said, “Wow, what a great choice!” Of course, I’d never heard of Sarah Palin then, and neither had anyone else. Just the fact that he chose a woman as his running mate got my attention. I hated giving up Hillary. I really, really, wanted Senator Obama to choose her as his running mate, and I was disappointed that he instead chose Joe Biden. McCain’s choice seemed to suit his maverick image, with which I was familiar from two-and-a-half-decades living in Arizona.

After information about Sarah Palin began to appear in the media, I was gobsmacked, as our Brit friends say. How in the world did Senator McCain, not to mention the entire Republican Party, think that this woman would be a suitable Vice President of the largest economy on earth? The largest military? One of the most developed countries? MY country? I heard people raving about her. How she is “common” (this is not an insult in the U.S.), how she’s a “real” person. How she’s “just like me.” All that may be true, but why aren’t you running for national office, Bambi?

John McCain has been serving the United States for all of his lengthy life. First, as a student in the Naval Academy, then as a soldier and prisoner of war, then in elected office for the last 26 years. Has this service made the man cynical? So cynical that he would choose an uneducated, inexperienced, pretty, girl to be his heartbeat away?

Don’t you find that insulting? I do. Senator McCain knows quite a lot about the military. He serves on the Armed Services Committee, along with other committees. He also has cancer. Cancer that he is unwilling to talk about with the American public. This man has had a hard life. Let’s face it—being a POW for nearly six years would take a year or two off anyone’s life. The additional stress of being the President of the U.S. could have a negative effect on his life—it could even cause his death.

And so, John McCain, lifelong civil servant, chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate and potential vice president. Does this make any sense to you? That a canny politician like John McCain would make a choice like that? Makes me wonder who is pulling his strings.

Oh, and back to the insult. I felt so odd about that choice of John’s that it took me a long time to identify what it was that made me uncomfortable. The answer is that anyone who would choose Sarah Palin to be the potential next president of the United States has no respect for this country. Not for its military, not for its government, not for its Constitution, not for its values. Sarah Palin as Vice President and potentially President of the United States is an insult to us all. It is even an insult to people who think Barack Obama is a nigger, a terrorist and related to Bin Laden...if only they knew. If only they knew.