The Problem with Palin

When liberals "attack Palin", they are not attacking Palin. Liberals are attacking McCain's judgment in selecting someone that, by the McCain campaign's own arguments, must be unqualified to be President.

It's possible for honest people to disagree on what qualifies a person to be President. The Constitution says only that one must be 35 years of age, born in America, and without a felony conviction.

Given two honest people, one can honestly believe Obama or McCain (or both) simply is not qualified to be President; the other can believe they both are. A person who believes that experience in government is important may believe that Obama does not have enough experience and McCain does; but an honest person cannot believe that Obama has enough experience and McCain does not. For someone for whom experience in government is the key qualifier for being President, McCain is obviously your choice.

People like me who support Obama do not disagree with the sentiment that McCain is more experienced than Obama. I believe that experience is overrated, that judgment and leadership are the critical qualifications for being President. I believe Obama has better judgment and leadership skills than McCain.

The problem with Palin is this:

Given that the primary qualification for being Vice President (in fact the only qualification) as stated in the Constitution is that you are qualified to be President, an honest person cannot hold that Obama should not be President because of his experience AND that Palin is a good selection for Vice President.

In other words, Palin's selection as Vice President does two things:

• It negates McCain's experience issue
• It re-enforces Obama's judgment issue
  

Put bluntly, selecting someone for Vice President who you do not think is qualified to be President shows monumentally bad judgment. If the McCain campaign honestly believes its own rhetoric about the importance of experience, it has done just that.