It was this week three years ago that Hurricane Katrina struck the United States and a major American city drowned. President Bush and his party were more than complicent in this - they were responsible for everything but the actual storm itself. And in response to that storm, like a well-worn suit you trot out for every major occasion, they did what they always do: Bloviate about the event, attempt distraction if things aren't going their way, congratulate each other when none is due, and blame everybody else but themselves. Their actions proved that - at the end of the day - today's GOP and their candidates are about a selfishness that towers over anything else they think to do.
George Bush's popularity never recovered from that event, yet - here we are - as another candidate who claims to be a maverick - different from the rest of the GOP - assumes the mantle of Republican nominee. And, once again - well - follow me below the fold...
The Democrats have just come off a wildly successful convention, nominating the first-ever person of color for President. And he is an absolutely brilliant politician who gave one of the finest acceptance speeches ever. In this he made two points of relevance to this piece: First, that this election is not about him, but about all of us. Second, that John McCain (yes, the POW, the hero who served his country so well), just doesn't get it and just doesn't care.
Therein lies the connection between Katrina and Sarah Palin: The maverick that even some Democrats loved in 2000 has become the man to whom the Republican torch is being passed. The torch of a party so self-motivated and narcissistic that they have turned McCain into a political charicature.
So, back to Katrina. In 1995, when the storm hit, the entire Republican party responded by diving into itself and its ideology. As television showed pictures of people dying in the water and the heat, our Moron-in-Chief (thanks Paul Begala, for that one) was off partying and avoiding the whole difficult issue. The evangelical base sent its leadership out to declare that the whole thing was the city's fault, because the citizenry included so many homosexuals. The rest of the White House was busy patting itself on the back for hiring Michael Brown, who was so unqualified that he - apparently - thought FEMA stood for managing a disaster into an emergency of even worse proportions. And - of course - the propoganda tools on Fox News and talk radio spun the entire thing into the fault of the Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco and Democratic New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagan.
As I said, never has one party been so completely, and selfishly divorced from reality. Never, that is, until now.
Senator Obama and the Democrats had an amazing convention. In fact, it was masterful. There has been quite a bounce, and the party emerged completely unified. And, frankly, this was never Senator McCain's election to win in the first place. The normally motivated cultural foot soldiers on the right don't trust him. He has to defend more traditionally Republican territory than any Republican candidate in years. He is being crushed in terms of fundraising. He is far older than his opponent, and far less charismatic on the stump. The economy, the war in Iraq, and all of the other pressing problems that have developed in earnest since 2001 are just making the environment impossible for Republicans in general.
John McCain needed the political equivalent of a Hail Mary pass, and he found one in Governor Sarah Palin. In doing so, however, he has not just moved outside the box, he's built a completely new box and crawled into it with the Alaska Governor.
Why?
Well, in all of the years of modern politics, all candidates Republican and Democrat have taken that first Presidential decision, that first test of leadership - the selection of a running mate very seriously. And, win or lose, these tickets have all had VP nominees that had enough experience to at least step into the President's shoes should the unthinkable occur. Even Dan Quayle, who was - indeed - quite young - still had two Senate terms under his belt.
John McCain has broken that rule. There is no way that Sarah Palin is remotely qualified to be President. She has been Governor of Alaska for a year and a half, and was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska for a year and a half before that. And, yes, he has blunted his own arguments against Senator Obama by doing this, and that's great from where I sit.
But that's not why this is so selfish. Here's why: For the sake of unifying his base, for the sake of trying to reach out to liberal Hillary Clinton supporters (who will never, ever, in a million years, vote for somebody who believes in teaching creationism in schools). For the sake of trying to put some excitement into a campaign that is starting out trying to crawl out from under the incumbent President that it is stuck with. And for the sake of attempting to distract the voting public from the incredible number of flaws in his candidacy?
For all of that, John McCain - the oldest man ever to be nominated to run for President, has chosen as his Vice Presidential nominee somebody who is completely unqualified to assume the duties of Commander-In-Chief. For the sake of an unlikely improvement to an unlikely shot at winning, McCain has already forsaken the sacred trust Americans leave to our Presidential candidates. Thus the most likely Vice President to have to succeed a potential President is not competent enough to be President. And, as another catastrophic hurricane takes aim at New Orleans, we are reminded that like the Bush Administration that's in there now: How selfish, how incompetent, and how dangerous a candidate John McCain really is.