View Sidebar
Remember Harriet Miers?

Remember Harriet Miers?

October 1, 2008 12:28 pmComments are Disabled

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Palin Problem recently, and I was trying to remember why this outrage over Palin’s qualifications sounded so familiar.  Then I remembered:  President Bush tapped his White House counsel, Harriet Miers, for the Supreme Court in 2005, and was met with outrage from both Republicans and Democrats over her qualification–or lack thereof–to be a Supreme Court Justice.  Furthermore, given that Miers is a woman, and she was nominated to replace Sandra Day O’Connor, the move was seen as political and by many as an insult to women.  After all, couldn’t he find a more qualified conservative female justice, even if his pool was limited to friends and allies?

Her nomination, of course, was going to be voted down, so he withdrew her name.  But what an embarrassment for Miers!  It’s not her fault she was grossly under-qualified to sit on the bench, and why should she have to go through the ordeal of a nomination process for Bush’s sake?  After all, if someone offers you Supreme Court Justice you don’t turn it down.

As many liberal critics and conservative columnists have noted, Sarah Palin is in way over her head–and does not show any sign of letting up.  I find it interesting that the qualification debacle–a situation where someone seems to be so unqualified to fill and office–has arisen again for the Republicans, in what seems like a blatant political move to attract women voters.  Again, this is an insult to women, to think that first, women would vote for her just because she is a woman, and second, that there isn’t a more qualified woman out there who could be tapped for the same position.

Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president, and would never presume to run for the presidency in the first place.  So why does she think she’s qualified to run for vice president?  At the end of the day, it will be this lack of serious qualification that Palin has that will undo the McCain ticket–because American voters, just like the 2005 Senate, don’t tolerate incompetence.

There’s also the “Brownie” debacle after Hurricane Katrina that calls to mind the blustering incompetence of the Bush administration to make a rational leadership choice.  I have a feeling that, should Palin be elected, in the spirit of the Bush administration McCain will be saying “you did a heckuva job, Sarah”–hopefully the American people will not have to say that to a President Palin.

Comments are closed