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In listening to Sarah Palin's first one-on-one interview with Charles Gibson last evening, twice she made reference during the course of the interview that during times of making major decisions, there is no room for "blink". When parsing the comments she made when the word "blink" was used, two specific traits or characteristics jumped out at me that I thought needed to be addressed.
The first time Sarah Palin used the word was when she was speaking about being asked to join John McCain as his running mate. Her response was that she did not blink and told him yes. There was no hesitation in her answer, no trepidation, which means she had absolutely no doubts about making a split second decision.
While Governor Palin failed to say whether she had already spoken to her family, or needed to speak to her family about the matter before accepting the decision on the spot, this still told me that she makes critical, unilateral, decisions without speaking to her most important advisers. This doesn't mean Sarah Palin hadn't already had some basic conversations with her family before accepting John McCain's Vice Presidency offer, but once it had actually been made, there was no final check to make sure everyone was still on board.
From a voter's perspective, since Sarah Palin failed to make one last check with her family before agreeing to accept the offer to become John McCain's running mate, this tells me that even with her closest confidants, she does what she wants regardless of what anyone else may think. In other words, she may take action first, and then ask for forgiveness later.
What if Sarah Palin's husband had taken seriously ill just before Senator McCain offered her the chance to become his running mate and it would have totally impacted his ability to be the primary caregiver of the children? Would that have made a difference in her decision in accepting John McCain's offer? The question then becomes whether we want our political leader making such rash decisions. What if she was a Commander-in-Chief and she was about to okay a major military incursion? Would she not wait for the final Intel before going into battle? This is a major concern to me.
Also, we must ask ourselves whether we want a potential Commander-in-Chief who is so absolutely sure about things that they are prepared to make split second decisions. Do we really want someone having their finger on a nuclear arsenal ready to launch not knowing whether an attack on the US really is preeminent? We have already been rashly drawn into a war based on faulty Intel; shouldn't we have someone more cautious, but still ready to stand up for us, be our Commander-in-Chief? Can we really afford that again?
The second time Sarah Palin said that she wouldn't blink was when she was asked about dealing with Russia. As I said above, a Commander-in-Chief must be prepared to use force when necessary, but in my opinion, only as a last resort, and only after final confirmation that things are as they seem.
The statements made by Governor Palin regarding the situation between Russia and Georgia were made as definitive, one-sided, and without concern of the full long term consequences of an aggressive first response. Rather than attempting to use diplomacy, trying to listen to all sides in order to mediate the conflict first, and then to mobilize a consensus of all nations to help reduce the tensions, Sarah Palin's first response was to threaten Russia, a nuclear power close to the United States, and a country which could effectively interrupt the flow of the world's oil supply.
In my opinion, besides providing evidence that Sarah Palin is someone who is ill equipped to be our Commander-in-Chief, I believe this is also a clear sign that she is someone who should not be communicating with Foreign Heads of State, as she said she did last evening, when she said she spoke to the President of Georgia on behalf of Senator John McCain. Her comments represented the United States of America, and we should all be condemning what she said last evening and admonishing Senator McCain for allowing someone with no Foreign Policy experience to get involved with matters this delicate and this dangerous. This was poor judgement exercised by Senator McCain.
These are dangerous times and we are already involved in two wars abroad. Irresponsible comments like Sarah Palin's last evening could easily draw us into a third conflict which everyone of us knows would be more physically taxing on our troops, where our manpower is spread so thin they can barely cover the conflicts they are currently engaged in and they are already exhausted from multiple tours of duty, and would cost American taxpayers even more than the billions of dollars a month we are already paying out of our pockets to fund.
When Governor Palin told Charles Gibson last night that she didn't blink when dealing with split second decisions, it should give us all a reason to blink about her qualifications as Vice President of these United States.
Because Senator John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate, and then got her involved in Foreign Affairs on behalf of our Country by allowing her to speak to the President of Georgia when she is so obviously not qualified, that should not only give all of us a reason to blink before considering voting for him as our President, it should give us a good reason not to vote for him.
