"I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink. You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink."
This statement encapsulates Gov. Sarah Palin’s view of herself and the world. That she knows that she is right without blinking, without considering, without thinking.
She didn’t stop to ponder if she was the best person for the job. She didn’t reflect on whether she had the experience for the potentiality of the position. She didn’t consider the effects of her actions on her family members. She spoke first and asked questions later, like "What does a vice president actually do?" See, Sarah answered and she didn’t blink.
blink
When asked about her national security credentials, what diplomatic, military or foreign policy experience is in her resume that would make her the appropriate candidate to be second in command of an entire country, her answer was, energy independence. That’s like being asked what classes best prepared you for a job as a heart surgeon and you saying, "Anthropology!"
When asked about meeting foreign dignitaries she stated that she hadn’t met any but that "I think if you go back in history and you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer." Sarah was, of course wrong about the V.P.‘s and the foreign dignitaries, we haven’t had a V.P. candidate that unprepared since J. Danforth Quayle, who stopped gaining acceptance several years ago. Still, Sarah never blinked.
She doesn’t blink when she suggests that we should consider going to war with Russia, saying, "For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable." The shear irony of the comment shines like grease off a moose burger.
One must ask yourself if Sarah Palin’s cramming for the vice presidency test including reading the study that the GAO did on our military readiness and mentioned this:
Since September 11, 2001, DOD has made a number of adjustments to its
personnel policies, including those related to length of service obligations, length of deployments, frequency of reserve component mobilizations, and the use of volunteers. While these measures have helped to increase the availability of personnel in the short term, the long-term impacts of many of these adjustments are uncertain. For example, the Army has successively increased the length of deployments in Iraq—from 6 to 12 and eventually to 15 months. Also, the services have, at various times, used "stop-loss" policies, which prevent personnel from leaving the service, and DOD has made changes to reserve component mobilization policies. In the latter case, DOD modified its policy, which had previously limited the cumulative amount of time that reserve component service members could be involuntarily called to active duty for the Global War on Terrorism. Under DOD’s new policy, which went into effect in January 2007, there are no cumulative limits on these involuntary mobilizations, but DOD has set goals to limit the mobilizations to 12 months and to have 5 years between these Global War on Terrorism involuntary mobilizations. DOD has also stated that in the short term it will not be able to meet its goal for 5 years
between rotations. By making these adjustments, DOD has made
additional personnel available for deployment, thus helping to meet short-
term mission requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, it is unclear
whether longer deployments or more frequent involuntary mobilizations
or other adjustments will affect recruiting and retention. (Highlighting and underlining were mine)
Our troops are spread so thin now that their deployments are lengthened and even when they get home, there is no guarantee that their lives will be their own or whether they will be plucked up again. And that’s with what we have on our plate now. And Sarah Palin blythfully suggests adding to the weight load without considering where we would get the manpower or the resources. Commies are bad, so we have to fight them whether we’re in a position to or not. She forgets the fact that this could weaken us against future terrorist attacks and prevent us from dealing with crisis’s and national disasters at home. She forgets that it could weaken us in the search for bin Laden by reducing our troop numbers and resources needed to find him. She forgets that it could even make the situation in Iraq worse than it already is. That’s what Sarah suggested and Sarah didn’t blink when she said it.
The point is, Sarah doesn’t blink because Sarah doesn’t think. She doesn’t consider. She doesn’t weight the information on hand and consider the consequences of those actions. Her experience is so limited in this arena that she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. Her ego is such that she doesn’t consider that she needs more information to make a serious decision than is between her ears because the safety of this country and all it’s citizens are at stake.
We don’t need a leader who is so fool hardy as to act without input and too ignorant of the enormity of the situation to ask, someone who shoots their mouth off and doesn’t blink.
GAO