Good point

The GOP hypocrisy continues to be stunning at times. I tried to watch some of the proceedings last night, but since every time I flipped over something nauseating was going on, I stopped. But I did see the stories and read some of the excerpts. The SCLM and (obviously) the right wing loved that she didn't throw up on herself, that she can read a speech from a teleprompter and do a credible job at it, and that she can deliver attack lines. Of course, she fell short of actually either telling thr truth or having something to say regarding policy, but we all know that it's really the democrats who have no policies, right, Senator John (this campaign isn't about issues) McCain?

Anyway, over at Sadly, No!, they raised a good point: "They overplayed the ‘community organizer’ slam. The party that wants to shrink government says service outside of government is worthless? The only service worth anything is as an agent of the state? The Dems need to start talking up community work, church work, charity work, volunteering to coach youth sports, etc. Palin and McCain say Little League coaches and scout leaders and food drive volunteers aren’t doing anything useful?"

On the one hand, everything the government does is screwed up, and we should depend on ourselves, each other, and local resources to fix any problems, but on the other, anyone doing that has no responsibilities and is worthy of ridicule? It's good that the Bush presidency set the precedent of never answering questions that weren't pre-screened, because that would doom these clowns.

Ready from Day One?

Nate over at fivethirtyeight.com has a great post up today about one essential difference between presidents and vice-presidents: In a perfect world, we would all like a president who is Ready on Day One (TM); it is not uncommon for a newly-elected president to face a major crisis almost immediately upon taking office. But more commonly, a president takes the Oath of Office under relatively calm waters, allowing them something of a learning curve.

On the other hand, when a vice president takes over for a president, the nation is necessarily undergoing a crisis, because the death (or resignation) of a president is perhaps as traumatic an event as can reasonably be imagined (in the "best" case resulting from a slowly-developing illness, and the worst, an attack by terrorists or foreign adversaries).