Dog-gonnit - Reforms and the Mavericks they are a comin'

Was it me? I thought the debate was boring and began tuning out around 10 PM. When it became clear that Governor Sarah Palin was not going to answer Gwen Ifil's questions and was going to make every single question about "reform" and "Joe Six-pack" and "Hockey Moms" I tuned out.

I am embarrassed for a major American political party to put such a candidate up for an election. Have we not had enough with Bush? Because that is exactly who she is, a Bush clone. She actually (in one of the rare substantive answers) said that she agrees with the enhanced power of the Vice Presidency and believes that the office is not in the executive branch, but of the legislative branch as well, a view that places her so far outside the mainstream she could be in Russia, but Stalinist Russia.

And let me be clear, she is not dumb, she is a person with a simple world view (read: Bush). The good guys and the bad guys, the hockey moms and the Joe Six-packs against the East coast liberals who run our country. It is astonishing the country that we now find ourselves in: an economic crisis not seen since the Great Depression, two wars depleting the resources of this government, al qaeda on the loose, Pakistan, Iran and the entire middle east destabilizing, the Rethuglicans place someone stunningly unqualified as their V.P.

This is not country first, it is party first, but it seems the country is getting it and after eight years of a simple worldview we are realizing we need something different. Phew. Still four and 1/2 weeks to go, but I surmise Sarah Palin will disappear from the news and this election will become about the issues again.