Sarah Palin--We've Done Worse

I  like this Sarah Palin choice.  Of course, I won't vote for her.  After all, she has confessed publicly to being a Republican.  But that aside, she rests well with me.

All those things McCain says about himself like "maverick" and "independent" that were probably true about him long, long ago, before he married into all that money and then got caught up in the Keating Five mess, may still be true about Palin.

First, is experience really necessary for the presidency or any other position of power?   I think choosing Congressmen based on who last won a multimillion dollar lottery in the district would be a good idea.  I think judges should be chosen randomly, a big drawing, say on the courthouse steps with ping ping balls, among the lawyers qualified to serve.  One big national drawing, with many, many ping pong balls, to choose the president based on all eligible voters would work for me.

Sarah Palin is about as close to a randomly selected candidate as we could get without throwing 250 million ping pong balls in a giant hamster cage.  She far more represents our demographics that the traditional rich, white, male, Yale, Skull and Bones vs. rich, white, male, Yale, Skull and Bones that was inflicted upon us in 2004.

She is a woman.  This is good.  The six years, six colleges including a junior college is endearing to me as well.  I like the basketball playing, the moose hunting, the beauty pageants and the marihuana sampling.  I like this messy bundle of kids of all ages and the Eskimo husband.  I also like that she drove everybody nuts when she got elected Governor.  I feel like I could be related to her or maybe she was the type of girl who could have had a thing with Uncle Tiger when he was a football star in high school.  

I see her as a wild, loose cannon who is too new and too little connected to be controlled.  I saw Huckabee much the same way.  If she can become president quickly rather than waiting until the lobbyists have an opportunity to give her some "experience," she could prove to be a surprising treat and a nightmare for the oligarchy.

I know she presents herself as an anti-environmentalist and a war-monger, but we seem to get those characteristics no matter who we elect.  

There are the only a couple of things that give me pause:

1.  I fear she doesn't believe in dinosaurs.  There are ways to reconcile dinosaurs with creationism and she may have decided upon one, but so far I cannot find it on the internet.   This should be her first major policy statement.  I would like a president who believes in dinosaurs.

2.  I still haven't heard if she has read Shakespeare and the Bible.  I understand that you can get a degree in journalism and miss these things.  Also, I don't mean reading the Bible in that "verse for a day" sort of way that you get at Sunday School.  I would like to think she has struggled with people like Lot, Onan and sick, crazy old David.  If she has not, rather than wasting a bunch of time with Joe Lieberman being "briefed," I urge she head out to the tundra with the Collected Works and that big Bible on the coffee table.

We could do, and usually have done, worse.

John McCain: The Perquisites of Power

I yam what I yam

The straight talk express runs on cash.

What to think of John McCain? Before beginning, may I say, I have never voted for a Republican, so if I were to do so now it would be more a sign of senescence than a reasoned choice.

I read a recent editorial that described him as an "antinomian." I think it was in the Nation. The reference then was to medieval clerics who thought they had license to live any way they wanted because their virtue had already been established. Hence, riches, wine, women and song.

This sent me to the Oxford English Dictionary. Even though I have the twenty volume version, I can hardly read the small print. I can make out that Milton used to talk about antinomians, but whether he liked them or not, I don't know.

One usage of "Antinomianism" seems to be a doctrinal position. Another looks like an insult. The Nation (if that is who it was) apparently intends it as an insult that sounds more erudite than "hypocrite."

I doubt McCain has considered whether he is a doctrinal antinomian or anti-antinomian. (The opposite of antinomian you would think would be nomian, but this does not appear to be the case. Just like the opposite of agnostic is not gnostic. Neither is antidisestablishmentarian more simply called establishmentarianism, although it appears it could be. Tristram asks you pardon the digression, Uncle Toby.)

In essence, an antinomian believes grace replaces the law. An antinomian dispute is recorded in Acts 15 regarding whether circumcision is mandated. As excited as Republicans get about gay marriage, I don't know how we have avoided a national debate about circumcision.

If you have seen law applied up close and personal, the temptation to throw it all out for a little grace makes a great deal of sense. Somehow I doubt this describes McCain, either.

McCain rose like a Phoenix from the ashes of the Keating Five. Part of the McCain much-vaunted bipartsanship may stem from these days when he joined with four Democratic Senators to take money and favors from Lincoln Savings and Loan before it collapsed and cost the public purse $3.4 billion. All the Democrats fell into ruin, retirement and disgrace. Democrats are supposed to get caught with women, not lobbyist money. Republicans get caught with boys and money, but they can be forgiven for the money. (This Spitzer guy seems to be a Republican who likes women, but New York Republicans have always been different.)

The problem is that McCain seems to need to dip into the ashes again from time to time when the cash runs short. I can understand that; sometimes when a guy wants to get somewhere in the world, he does what he has to do.