McCain's Palin pick is the epitome of tokenism - By Joe Conason

[helderheid]

Suddenly all anyone needs to qualify as a potential commander in chief is to be a religious ideologue with female gender characteristics?

Aug. 30, 2008 | It is hard to think of a more cynical and contemptuous political act this year than John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. Having served as governor of Alaska for less than two years -- and as mayor of a small town before that -- her qualifications for national office are minimal.

Palin is the epitome of tokenism, exactly what conservative Republicans have always claimed to scorn, until today, as the politics of quotas and political correctness. Even Rush Limbaugh is a feminazi now (at least until Election Day).

But if Palin's résumé is limited, to put it politely, she possesses the only two qualities that McCain now seems to consider essential: She is a right-wing religious ideologue with female gender characteristics. Suddenly that is all anyone needs to qualify as a potential commander in chief of the world's most powerful military. We probably won't hear so much from now on about "experience" and "judgment," McCain's vaunted standard for the presidency until ... today. We certainly won't hear again about the "person most prepared to take my place," the phrase he has used more than once to describe his main criterion for a running mate.

When CNN political correspondent Dana Bash interviewed McCain last April, she mentioned his joke that one of the two main tasks of the vice president is to check on the president's health every day, a job of particular importance in his case. What did he mean by that? It was just a humorous remark, he said. But when she pressed him further, McCain said: "I think about whether that person who I select would be most prepared to take my place. And that would be the key criteria ."

Sometime between then and now, a focus group must have told McCain and his handlers that the experience argument wasn't cutting against Barack Obama, that the nomination of Joe Biden as Obama's running mate had eviscerated it completely -- and that instead he and his consultants had better find a way to corral disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters, or forget about winning come November

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http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/08/30/palin/

[Skink]

1. Big oil Aka Cheney picked her.

She can't wait to open up Alaska where she is probably heavily invested.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. I agree 100%. McSame had nothing to do with this selection.

He was given orders, and he took them...

He has totally sold whatever little he had left of a soul...to be President, even if only for a few months.

[helderheid]

2. k