Obama’s response to the Palin VP choice:
Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same.”
Especially classless after John McCain’s classy congrats to Obama last night. And dumb. Yeah, that is exactly what they should be doing — dissing not only a woman governor, but an entire small town. They open themselves up with this “zero foreign policy experience” stuff too, considering she has about as much as Obama does. Unless you count giving speeches in Germany as foreign policy experience, that is. Palin is the governor of a state bordered by two countries, Russia and Canada. That alone likely gives her more diplomacy experience than Obama and Biden combined. And judging from the way the two VP announcements were handled, who makes the stronger case for being in charge of protecting the nation’s secrets? Heck, Palin’s parents found out about the pick from Fox News. McCain’s people kept a tight lid on this one, showing great control and restraint.
On the Democrat message boards and blogs I have heard a lot of people saying they can’t wait until she has to debate Biden. They might want to be careful what they wish for. In my column at Townhall today I write about some examples of Biden’s bad foreign policy judgment. Biden also has a horrible habit of exaggerating and boasting. How ridiculous is he going to look if he starts that up in the debate? And how will he resist since he will surely feel superior to the young, female Palin? The Obama people are surely upset that McCain upstaged them after their big night and I don’t think they know much about Palin yet so they are flailing. This is getting really, really fun.
Update: Heh, VPILF.com.
Update II: Bob Owens points out some of the facts being left out of the attacks on Palin.
Update III: One commenter argues with my comment above about Palin having more foreign policy experience than Obama and more experience with diplomacy than Biden and Obama combined. If Obama has more foreign policy experience than her, then by all means share it with me. I know about that speech in Germany, but other than that I can’t name anything, even after watching a week’s worth of singing his praises. As for more experience with diplomacy, Biden is hardly known for being diplomatic. Do I need to pull out the list of undiplomatic Biden behavior?
Here is one of the several that I cite in my Townhall column linked in the post above (for those who didn’t already bother to follow the link):
Michael Rubin — “As Gen. David Petraeus struggled to unite Iraqis across the ethnic and sectarian divide, Iran’s Press TV seized on Biden’s plan for partitioning Iraq and featured his statements with the headline “US plans to disintegrate Iraq.” Biden’s attack-dog statements about U.S. policy failures emboldened Iranian hard-liners to defy diplomacy. In the Dec. 7, 2007, official sermon, Ayatollah Mohammad Kashani speaking on behalf of Iran’s supreme leader, declared, “This Senator [Biden] correctly says Israel could not suppress Hizbullah in Lebanon, so how can the U.S. stand face-to-face with a nation of 70 million? This is the blessing of the Guardianship of the Jurists [the theocracy] . . . which plants such thoughts in the hearts of U.S. senators and forces them to make such confessions.” The crowd met his statement with refrains of “Death to America.”
On second thought, I guess Biden does have much more experience with diplomacy, he has just failed miserably at it.
Update IV:Jake Tapper: The Obama campaign’s first impulse was… to attack Gov. Palin.
Update V: Melanie Morgan has a great roundup of liberal and conservative reaction to Palin. There are some liberals very unhappy with this choice — some even saying this will win McCain the election, while others won’t go that far, but it is clear this pick really bothers them:
Justin Hart has been compiling reaction….Here’s Oliver Willis just now on Twitter:
“How many qualified and tested Republican women did McCain pass over for Sarah Palin? that’s not change we can believe in.”
(I replied: “Ha! How many qualified and tested women did Obama even vet!? Do you really want to head down this road? “)
Erick Erickson makes some great points — Palin runs a state, Obama runs his mouth. Read it all.
