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Sever Plocker

Leftists irritated by Palin

VP candidate’s inexperience calls attention to the fact that Obama is no better

A distinguished group of Israeli lecturers and their colleagues at US universities sent me an email against “McCain’s dangerous choice.” They were referring to Sarah Palin, Alaska’s governor, who McCain chose as his running mate. The email is being distributed online by followers of the MoveOn movement, a leftist American intellectual organization whose attitude to Israel is rather hostile.

 

Palin’s candidacy has irritated many among the American leftist camp, and they have been responding like a child who has seen an expensive toy being taken away from him (the toy in question being “change.”) Yet the response is understandable. By choosing Palin, McCain exposed the deep fundamental problems associated with Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

 

The 44-year-old Palin lacks military experience? True, as Alaska’s governor she oversees merely thousands of National Guard members. However, the 47-year-old Obama, who wants to become America’s next president, doesn’t even have this kind of experience. He’s got nothing.

 

Palin has no civil administration experience? True, she served as the mayor of a northern town and later governed a state that is home to 700,000 residents. However, Obama has not governed anything thus far and hasn’t managed any organization. He studied, toured, engaged in social activism and politics, and in 2005 was sworn in as a senator. He never had to execute administrative decisions, not even at Palin’s level.

 

Palin has uncompromising opinions? Indeed, her views are highly conservative. But at least she has some opinions. Barack Obama barely has any, if we consider his public appearances. He makes do with general statements that are well uttered, but even his fans will find it difficult to identify a clear commitment to practical steps. Most of is it just words.

 

I advise those who sent me the email against McCain’s choice for vice president to read Obama’s latest speech at the stadium. Isn’t it ridiculous? Isn’t it embarrassing? No media outlet in Israel would agree to publish it.

 

Palin can learn

Palin is ignorant when it comes to foreign affairs? Certainly. She knows very little about global politics. But Obama was like that too when he joined Senate. He learned fast; so can she.

 

Palin is suspected of sympathizing with an anti-Israeli figure? Perhaps. About 10 years ago she was photographed next to Pat Buchanan, a member of the American Right’s anti-Israeli margins. However, Obama said that his spiritual father for dozens of years was Jeremiah Wright from Chicago, known for his anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sermons.

 

Palin was nominated just because she’s a woman? No doubt about that. However, had Obama been completely white, he would have no chance of being the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.

 

All of the above does not indicate that Sarah Palin is better than Barack Obama: On the contrary, her conservative views are intolerable in my view. Had I been an American citizen, I would not vote for the McCain-Palin ticket. However, I don’t forget where Bill Clinton came from and what he did before being chosen as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in 1992: He was a young and charismatic governor of a small and poor state, Arkansas.

 


פרסום ראשון: 09.02.08, 12:02
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