Honesty – The Best Policy

The press has aggressively gone after Gov. Palin on her lack of international experience. Of course they don’t go after the other three candidates for their lack of such experience. After all, has McCain, Obama, or Biden ever negotiated with a foreign leader? Did the governors who became president have any foreign relations experience? I’m thinking of former governors Clinton, Bush, and Reagan. No, they didn’t. Yet the press insists on singularly pursuing Palin in the hopes of making her look like a fool. And they claim to be unbiased!

Nevertheless, because Palin hasn’t been up front and honest, she has looked like a fool in the few interviews she has done. When Katie Couric asked Palin about her foreign experience, I believe she should have responded something like this:

“Of course as any governor, I don’t have any foreign policy experience. As a matter of fact, most senators have had little or no foreign policy experience. However, I am getting up to speed quickly with respect to the key international issues of the day. If in the unlikely event I became president, I would surround myself with foreign policy experts. Next question.”

Wouldn’t that be refreshing? She would be answering honestly and saying what the public already knows but would like to hear from her. Because she and the McCain campaign haven’t been honest, they are losing ground.

On another topic, I am very disappointed with the response of some Republican congressmen with respect to this bail out package. They are letting ideology stand in the way of a necessary measure to save our economy from further damage. Of course it isn’t an ideal package. Of course there will be unintended consequences. Of course it is being rushed through and will have flaws. But what is the alternative?

We’ve had Washington Mutual fail, the largest bank failure in the history of the world. What will it take for our congresspeople to put aside ideology and partisan differences, and get the job done? If these Republicans don’t get on board, the GOP will lose even more seats in Congress.

By the way, the Democrats have been using this bail out for their own political gain. Reid and Schumer both made political hay out of this by telling the press that McCain’s presence was politically motivated and has done more harm than good. Shame on you!