In What Respect, Charlie?

The Improper

NYTimes: Growing Doubts on Palin Take a Toll, Poll Finds

A growing number of voters have concluded that Senator John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is not qualified to be vice president, weighing down the Republican ticket in the last days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

All told, 59 percent of voters surveyed said Ms. Palin was not prepared for the job, up nine percentage points since the beginning of the month. Nearly a third of voters polled said the vice-presidential selection would be a major factor influencing their vote for president, and those voters broadly favor Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.

And in a possible indication that the choice of Ms. Palin has hurt Mr. McCain’s image, voters said they had much more confidence in Mr. Obama to pick qualified people for his administration than they did in Mr. McCain.

The more she speaks, the more we realize how little she knows.

I really liked her energy speech at a solar plant yesterday where she said "Drill, baby, drill." At a solar plant. Genius!

Anonymous McCain Aide Said It First

ThinkProgress

New Obama Ad: "His Choice"

Devastating. Palin's a winker and McCain's a fool for choosing her.

Former McCain Adviser Charles Fried: Sarah Palin Is "Ignorant and Inexperienced"

Charles Fried, Ronald Reagan's Solicitor General, former Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, current Harvard Law Professor and, until this week, McCain adviser.

More on Charles Fried's endorsement of Barack Obama by the conservative legal scholar and former McCain advisor. It's all about Palin.

HuffPo: Conservative Legal Icon Charles Fried Elaborates on His Obama Endorsement

In a letter to the McCain campaign, he asked that his name be removed from their legal advisory committee, explaining that the key reason "is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."

I asked Professor Fried to elaborate on what, if anything, this says about Obama and abortion. He responded to me with this email:

"There are many issues facing the country that are more important than what the President says or believes about abortion. I suspect that there are a great many things that Obama believes and will do with which I will disagree -- starting with his judicial nominees, but in a time of economic and foreign policy crisis I found the risk of promoting to the presidency a person as ignorant and inexperienced as Sarah Palin -- natural political talent though she is -- unacceptable."

There's not enough lipstick in the world to cover up vast ignorance and inexperience.

Sarah Palin Is Stupid

I mean, really, really stupid. Shouldn't you know at least a little about what the job you're running for entails? Watch this fool:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me!.... [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.

From ThinkProgress:

Article I of the Constitution establishes an exceptionally limited role for the Vice President — giving the office holder a vote only when the Senate is “equally divided”:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

Moreover, the U.S. Senate website explains that the modern role of Vice Presidents has been to preside over the Senate “only on ceremonial occasions.” ThinkProgress contacted Senior Assistant Paliamentarian Peter Robinson, who also disputed Palin’s characterization of the Vice President’s role:

In modern practice the Vice President doesn’t really control the Senate. … If anyone has a responsibility to try to govern the Senate, it’s the responsibility of the two leaders

.

If someone came in to interview for a paralegal job, and told me she was looking forward to filling in for me in court, I'd smile at her and show her the door. Hopefully America will do the same with Stupid Palin.