VP Debate Leaves Questions Unanswered - Palin Still Shines
By Michael Bresciani (10/04/08)
Squaring off with Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin shined and proved once again that she is the best choice for the GOP in today’s climate of woefulness about the outgoing administrations legacy.
The big question most Americans have been waiting to have answered is whether Sarah Palin could stand up against veteran Washington Senator Joe Biden. She not only held her own but made a powerful showing of character and savvy that would satisfy all but the most chronically disgruntled. It is the questions that were not asked and in reality, that could not be asked that leave so much to be desired. What are those questions?
Sen. Biden conducted himself as a gentleman without any side trips into long sighs or sexist retorts. His experience in foreign policy was evident but few analysts or pundits have noticed the serious contradictions that he proffered when comparing Iraq and Iran.
He said that his prediction that Iraq would not be tamed or woken up to democratic influences because it was rife with clashes and differences between Sunni and Shiite religious factions were largely ignored. Not once noticing the obvious contradiction Biden said that Obama would readily sit down unconditionally to talk with Iran’s Ahmadinejad. Only moments later he said that the security or authority guiding the development and use of nuclear weapons was completely in the hands of the same religious factions as those in Iraq, Sunnis and Shiites and not Mr. Ahmadinejad. You can’t have it both ways. If those factions are what make Iraq irreversibly unstable; than how are we better off with the same factions being in charge of nuclear capacity in Iran?
The question answered raises a far more important one that is not. Why bother talk with a puppet megalomaniacal leader who after all doesn’t have his finger on the trigger in the first place? Is this the new diplomacy that the Obamite prophets of change are offering America? Don’t expect many pundits or the best analysts to notice this obvious incongruity. The other thing we can’t expect is that either of the two Islamic factions would give Barack Obama so much as the time of day much less a sit down. It takes no prophet to know this; it takes only any average American with two good ears, even while it has been overlooked by Obama and running mate.
No one in the debate could be charged with any overt or blatant lies with the exception of the cunning use of a lie of omission. What is omitted may be the most powerful statement made. Several times Biden cited the McCain “no” vote for the funding of the Iraq war. He emphasized that McCain’s objections were about a timeline, as if that were an excuse for the no vote. McCain had reasons, not excuses for the “no” vote, but they were very carefully omitted.
Rather than an excuse it was the only thing McCain could do to keep the democratically controlled congress from holding funds hostage unless an exact timeline to quit the war was attached to them. It was a form of partisan extortion in answer to the failure of the newly democratically controlled congress to produce their promise to end the war immediately after their 2006 victories in the house. It was the “no dough until away from Iraq we go” attached to the funds that got McCain’s no vote and if seen in the calm light of day only further proves his principled and persistent stance to see the war or any other American endeavor through to the end. He could not let the money to fight the present war be imprisoned as he was for fighting America’s past war.
Biden who is often lauded for his experience was not above using some of his craft to masterfully wield one of the oldest political devices in history. Drawing attention to atrocities in Darfur and saying he “has no stomach for genocide” conveniently drew attention away from a much greater genocide that was conspicuously missing from the questions posed by the moderator, “what about the genocide right here at home.”
The UN estimates that deaths from violence and disease in Darfur since atrocities began there in 1973 are between 400,000 and 500,000. The atrocities of Roe V. Wade which also started in 1973 are between 80 to 100 times greater than in Darfur. Forty million unborn babies have met with the bottom of waste buckets in America’s abortion clinics since 1973. Neither Sen. Obama nor Joe Biden has voted in any way since the beginning of this genocide that might suggest they had a socially induced annoyance that lead to any personal gastrointestinal difficulties for either candidate.
Was it just an oversight that no abortion questions surfaced in the debate, what great luck for the Obama ticket! Instead of hearing Biden’s rant and repetition about ten billion dollars a day being spent in Iraq we may have heard Sarah Palin pounding out the reminder of some 4,000 human lives being snuffed out each and every day for the last 35 years right here under the veil of the Red, White and Blue.
Blaming the outgoing administration for the ills of the nation is a political device as old as America itself. The doubts and fears of people can be assuaged by the promise of prosperity, renewed prominence in the world and according to Joe Biden even the capture of the worlds most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. Should somebody tell the Senator that Bin Laden may already be dead? But if hunting a dead man might not prove embarrassing enough what if after he was located Barack Obama carried out his bold promise to sit down and talk with any of America’s enemies. Facetious? Don’t be too sure.
Sarah Palin noted that the Senator kept referring to the past in his assessment of the nation. Others may have noticed this recurrent theme in his responses. Juxtaposed to Biden’s wailing about the past, Palin’s call was to adhere to and persist on changing America’s future through principles. She cited John McCain’s voting record and past service to the nation and showed how all of it was driven by principle. If all of that could be ignored she gave a shining example of her own adherence to strong principles in the answer about her position on gay unions.
Without veering away one bit from the rights of all individuals under the constitution to enjoy America’s freedoms she brushed aside the whole quagmire of negative possibilities with a powerful show of conviction. She made it clear that she is in support of gay rights only so far as they do not change the traditional view of marriage between one man and one woman. Both the moderator and Sen. Biden seemed willing to jump away from that subject with all haste after Palin’s answer.
It is easy to divert the attention of Americans away from principles by appealing to fears of economic collapse or hardships. How will we send our children to college pay the mortgage or put gas in the car? Giving up principles is accomplished by waving the buck. Hollywood is proof of that. The last dozen major movie releases filled with licentious themes, antichristian sentiments and general foolishness have cost as much as several Iraq wars.
Pop culture, media and games are winning a war against the minds of our youth that no mere teachers pay raises and money thrown at education can easily offset. The fight for the minds of an entire generation has been set aside in the melee of other problems. This is the war we are really losing not the one in Iraq.
It is the shared opinion of countless thousands of theologically versed people in this country that America may be on the brink of making the most serious mistake in her long and proud history.
That mistake is the refusal to see that our economy, our standing in the world and our security are all predicated on our morality. It has always been so but is now in danger of being supplanted with the false notion that power has only to do with military might and economic prosperity. Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact without a principled and moral stance all the aforementioned count for nothing.
Like the founding fathers of this great nation Governor Palin is calling for the use of “principle” to guide America in the future. Joseph Biden is reverting to the “past” to invoke a fear of the future with no promise or resolve except an Obama solution. I would not insult Sen. Obama by saying he does not have any principles but I can safely say his policies and his promises are not principled enough to pull this country out of the deepening decline it is now undergoing.
At the risk of sounding like a pathologically driven pulpit pounding Palin pundit this writer knows a sure bet when he sees one. Is Sarah Palin VP material? I will use some of her own endearing colloquial language to answer that.
You betcha!
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