Executive Experience

Have you heard anyone say, “Executive Experience?” Have you heard it relating to the presidential election? You have? Aw, shucks. Here I was hoping I could be the first. I bet it’s far less likely that you’ve heard an explication of it that rose above the level of a middle school civics class.

First, let’s cut through all of the garbage. There is no position that one can hold which guarantees a person is qualified for the presidency. George Bush has held the job for eight years and still isn’t qualified.

Some people are so ridiculous as to say that Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama and Biden. On what basis? On the basis that neither of them has held executive positions. The only logical conclusion then must be that she is also more qualified than McCain. Oh, really?

Why do these people insist that executive experience is the only kind that matters? Because they are partisans, or idiots, or both.

How many presidents have come to the job with more executive experience than George Bush? Didn’t he run about seven businesses before holding public office? Wasn’t he in his second term as governor of Texas? Didn’t he hold a Masters of Business Administration degree from Harvard? Hadn’t he been a fighter pilot?

I recently saw someone, I think it was Karl Rove, promote Palin as having been mayor of the second largest city in Alaska. What? A town of 7,000 is the second largest city? The entire state has a population approximately the same as Charlotte, North Carolina. Perhaps we would have a more accurate picture of her level of qualification by referring to her as the Mayor of Alaska.

As farfetched as these and many other attempts have been to support her as qualified, someone topped them all. Palin was qualified because her government experience was in Alaska and Alaska is close to Russia. Just who was this brilliant political analyst? Cindy McCain. She couldn’t have said anything that stupid. Oh but she did; in an interview on ABC with George Stephanopoulos. Perhaps John shared with her his thoughts and the results of the almost three days of vetting.

How many times have we heard about her ‘experience’ as commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard? Her experience includes not one single order to that organization. It does include some photo ops. Even Dick Cheney had more military experience in finagling his five deferments.

Larry Kudlow of CNBC asked Palin about her possibly being a veep candidate a month before she was tapped. This is her response: “As for that v.p. talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the v.p. does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that v.p. slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”

How can any high school graduate not know what the v.p. does? And we must all agree that the most important consideration would be what it accomplishes for Alaskans. We might want to give this point a little more consideration. I’ve never embedded a YouTube video before so I am not certain I have done it correctly. If it doesn’t work, the link is here.

Did you listen carefully? Those mentions of the Alaskan Constitution are important. The Alaskan Independence Party espouses, naturally, the independence of Alaska. They claim that government employees and military personnel were not eligible to vote on statehood. They don’t want to be Americans. We’re not good enough for them. They shouldn’t have to share their energy with us. The v.p. job has to benefit Alaskans. No, I didn’t make this up. I couldn’t possibly.

Is she really connected to the AIP? According to Dexter Clark, Vice Chairman of the AIP: “Our current governor who I mentioned at the last conference, the one we were hoping would get elected, Sarah Palin, did get elected . . . and there was a lot of talk about her moving up. She was an AIP member before she got the job as mayor . . .” Her husband admits to being a member for seven years.

AIP party founder Joe Vogler once said he had “no use for America or her damned institutions.” While McCain’s slogan is ‘Country First,’ Palin applauds and shares AIP’s slogan, “Alaska First – Alaska Always.

As mayor she fired the librarian for refusing to ban a book. And then there was the firing of the police chief and, and, and. Perhaps she can be convinced to take the job of v.p. if we let her fire the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court and, ultimately, John McCain, since he obviously disagrees with her. This is someone who is totally unfamiliar with the entire Constitution, other than the 2nd Amendment. Yeah, sure, let’s put this dingbat a heartbeat away from the button.

Qualified? Because of executive experience? This former mayor of a town smaller than many high schools is qualified for not much beyond clubbing and gutting moose, polar bears and baby seals. She is totally ignorant of what America is all about. She is a dangerous zealot. How can she deal with the complexities of the positions of v.p. or president when she neither sees nor comprehends anything complex?

Everyone says that Biden must handle her with kid gloves because she is a woman. I’m afraid that is true but she certainly doesn’t deserve such consideration. Neither will she appreciate it. Anyone voting for her deserves her, but the rest of us don’t.

The positions of v.p. and president call for something beyond selfishness. The positions call for devotion to all fifty states. They call for allegiance to the U.S. Constitution. They call for a sense of and history of responsibility. They certainly don’t call for whatever putative experience she can claim, executive or otherwise.

Tagged as: aip, biden, constitution, executive, experience, mccain, obama, palin, president, vice