Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Palin's across the board opposition to abortion for any reason would once have stirred up headlines.  Now this is considered such a mainstream position for neoconservative Republicans that Palin's position has barely caused a ripple outside the ranks of women's feminist organizations.

To show how far right Republicans have lurched, Palin's belief in teaching creationism in public schools has become so acceptable that it has barely caused a stir.  In the sixties a San Diego Republican state legislator named Chaplain Barnes was kept at a distance by fellow California Republicans, who recognized the extremism of his position.  

What was once deemed extreme and dangerous on the Republican right has now become  mainstream.  Columnist Cal Thomas, a protégé of the late Jerry Falwell, once stated on Crossfire that it was fine with him to teach in public schools that the earth is flat if that was what local school boards preferred.

At a time when some 57 Nobel Prize Science Laureates warned of the mounting dangers to planet earth's survival through global warming and former Sacramento male nurse turned talk show host Rush Limbaugh dismissed such warnings and evidence as a "hoax" his position was regarded as absurd, revealing him to be an extremist who appeals to gullible zealots.

Palin sides with Limbaugh rather than the Nobel Prize scientists.  She considers global warming to be "a hoax."  

The violent force of nature that is forcing changes in Republican Convention scheduling, and from which McCain hopes to politically benefit as it is revealed that he may deliver his acceptance speech from the danger zone of that moment, has assuredly changed nothing in the minds of Palin and fervent neocon believers.

Prepare for Palin to mount a steady onslaught on a favorite topic, solving the energy crisis through Alaskan drilling.  She has cited it as a panacea to end all dependence on foreign oil, stating her view with the simplicity that earmarks the ill-informed in interviews with Charlie Rose and Glenn Beck.

Experts who have studied the ANWR issue concluded that such an effort would be a stopgap effort at best with even limited results not to be realized for a decade.  

Expect McCain and Palin to use the Alaska drilling campaign argument as long as Republican strategists think it has traction.  

Note how quickly the Republicans responded this time during an election year to threats of harm to New Orleans and its residents, when the first time around the issues were finishing George Bush's golf game at a country club, presenting John McCain with a birthday cake, and seeing that FEMA director Michael Brown chose the right tie before appearing on national television.

This is the same Sarah Palin whose fifth child is afflicted by Down's syndrome, and will be presumably left in the care of her commercial fisherman husband while she campaigns.  

Palin has also acknowledged that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant out of wedlock.  Such are the dilemmas in Republican family values land.  Consider what Republicans would now be saying if any Democratic candidate were in the same circumstances.

In her appearance on the Glenn Beck Show Palin also noted that, as with global warming, only a few environmental extremists consider the polar bear as threatened with extinction.  Since global warming is cited as the cause with rapidly melting ice caps in Palin's own Alaska, she is consistent in stating that there is nothing to worry about on either subject.

A few days ago the National Wildlife Federation delivered a televised appeal for funds and support to save polar bears from extinction.  Even the current Republican regime's Department of Interior has listed the polar bear as a "threatened" species.  According to Palin this claim is as absurd as that of the existence of global warming.

Palin also participated in a recent national television interview with Lawrence Kudlow on CNBC.  She asked Kudlow innocently just what a vice-president of the U.S. is expected to do.  Kudlow told her that the office has dramatically changed and that its occupants more broadly participate in the executive branch than earlier in history.

The question arises whether Palin, should she assume the vice-presidency, will take Kudlow or perhaps another instructor or instructors along to provide her with a quick transition so that she can answer any eleventh hour emergencies and be on call if something should happen to John McCain.  Were the aforementioned factors considered by McCain and his staff before Palin's selection?  

Was Palin thoroughly vetted by the Republican high command before her selection?  Was the ongoing investigation into her dismissal of former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan also evaluated?    

Should we still feel safer, as constantly alleged, with Republicans at the helm in the post-9/11 world?  Was this factor considered, including Palin's experience and familiarization with global affairs, in the Alaskan's selection?

After all, one commentator at always informative "fair and balanced" Fox News proclaimed that Palin had an edge over Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden since she "lived closer to Russia."

Then there was that call for women to unite, with an emphasis toward Hillary Clinton supporters, to sign on since, after all, she is a woman.  How does Palin's record stand out on issues vital to informed female voters, beginning with protecting a woman's right to choose?

Wasn't it downright insulting to women to have Palin appear next to John McCain and exclaim that they should vote for her since, after all, she is a woman, just like Hillary?

Also, Palin supported Ted Stevens’ controversial boondoggle “bridge to nowhere” and now surfaces as a “reformer” and claims to have opposed it from the start.