Is Sarah Palin ready to be president

On day one? Or on day two or three or four?

I apologize if this sort of thread has already been posted. I've been distracted and haven't really visited the D&D since before the storm.

 

Right. She's running for vice president. And there is only one real requirement for that job:

Being ready to be president.

I can't imagine why I would need to explain that but it is because everybody dies and nobody gets to decide when that will happen, whether by natural or other cause.

The vice president's only crucial duty is to be ready to step in at any moment, in the case of a tragic event.

Nobody that is not ready to be president on day one is ready to be vice president.

 

I think Joe Biden is more ready than Palin, Obama or McCain actually. Anybody can make fun of any given candidate for any given thing. But I bet that if I started a poll asking if Biden was ready to be president we wouldn't get a 100% rating against with 22 people voting. If you want to start one, go ahead. This isn't just my opinion, it's the consensus of the American people - according to polling at least.

Biden makes a lot of gaffes but nobody doubts that he understands the issues or that he is a serious and thoughtful guy.

Palin won't go on MTP. Biden's on there about once a month, taking tough questions. In fact, Palin has only agreed to two interviews with extremely tight conditions (which the McCain campaign insisted on) and she has blown them both. She is stumped by every single follow up question by any journalist. Not just gotcha stuff - she is clearly relying on memorized talking points. When she is asked to follow up she doesn't know what to say. She shouldn't be a heartbeat away from the president if she doesn't understand the issues well enough to answer a follow up question or conduct a press conference.

Biden, by contrast, can't shut up.

The difference is that she doesn't know enough to answer important questions and he knows too much to know how to answer properly in short form.

Here's an honest question for you, IROC it. Regardless of who you're voting for...

On January 20, the next president will inherit a great lot of very serious problems. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the worst happens and that that president somehow dies.

If that were to happen, on January 20, would you rather entrust our country to Palin or Biden?

I'm sincerely interested in your answer.

 

You're alright, IROC it. Seriously.

I disagree that they're both yes men or puppets.

I don't think Palin has her own opinions and I don't think she understands the issues. If she does have her own opinions, she is hiding them from us. And that's not okay. Are we supposed to wait til she's president to find out what she thinks and what she'd do? That's not okay either.

I flat don't think she's ready. And, regardless of McCain's age or health, that scares the hell out of me. I honestly believe that any single person who has ever appeared on television and answered spontaneous questions about the issues (that means every single talking head, pundit, politician or anyone else who has ever talked extemporaneously on the issues including every single person who has ever posted in this forum besides basso) is more qualified to be president than she is.

Now I could be totally wrong about Palin and I'm prepared to be. But first she has to prove it by agreeing to answer questions in an uncontrolled environment. There is no more uncontrolled environment than being leader of the free world. If she can't handle Tom Brokaw, she can't handle Putin (or Medvedev) or anybody else she'd need to deal with. She just can't. If she can't handle an American journalist, she can't be given the keys to the most powerful position in the world.

Biden, by contrast, has the opposite problem. He's a gaffe machine because he knows so much and doesn't know when to shut up.

But he knows things. And he's proved it.

If Palin knows things - if she knows anything it's time for her to prove it too.

If she cannot, if she refuses to, if McCain's campaign refuses on her behalf, we cannot, as Americans, take the chance that she will be given those keys.

If we aren't allowed to know how she responds spontaneously to interviews or questions, we might as well hold a lottery and hand the country to whoever wins the right scratch off ticket.

I understand there are legitimate reasons to support McCain and legit reasons to oppose Obama.

But we are dangerously close to possibly winding up with a president whose opinions and, maybe more importantly, whose ability to think on her feet we know nothing about.

You yourself, as a strong supporter of that ticket, say she's not ready to be president.

As a patriotic American, doesn't it trouble you at all that you might contribute to a situation in which someone you don't believe is ready to be president would be president?

Every American should be demanding that she gets off the pot and holds a press conference. Maybe she would change my mind (or yours). But until she proves that, I don't see how any patriotic American could in good conscience vote for McCain when they know it could result in a president we all agree isn't ready for the job.