Eight Things About Sarah Palin That Should Not Matter...And One That Should

Sarah Palin may be easy to make fun of, but it seems like most of the things people are saying about her are meaningless and overshadow the important things.  

1.  She spends $150,000 on clothes and has her personal hair dresser fly around with her.  (She is a middle class woman of modest net worth; what better way for Republicans to spend their money than making her look good; they are spending millions on negative ads that certainly aren't working.  If she would really wear dresses from "consignment stores in Anchorage" she would be described as frumpy and not having the right image to represent her country.  If the main qualification for VP is to have someone with lots of clothes and nice hair, Mitt Romney would have the job).

2.  She gives weird names to her kids.  (How can anyone voting for a Barack make fun of Track, Trig, or Piper?)

3.  She has an unmarried pregnant teenaged daughter.  (If embarrassing relatives was a disqualification, would anyone be up to the job?  Actually, W probably has had the fewest such embarrassments of anyone in recent history, and look how he turned out).

4.  The scandal with her brother-in-law's firing.  (There may be something here.  But, as Ken Starr demonstrated, if you spend enough time and money trying to dig up dirt, you can find it on anyone.  Plus, any discussion of scandal doesn't get very far before the whole Clinton thing comes back again).

5.  She voted for the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it.  (Good politicians will change their minds.  And we forgave John Kerry and Hillary for voting for the war before voting against it (well, on second thought, they both lost, so maybe not the best example)).

6.  She shoots wolves from airplanes.  (Sure, this is a disgusting form of hunting, but would it have anything to go with her ability to govern?)

7.  She didn't get a passport until the past few years.  (W. had only been out of the country three times before running for President, despite living in the border state of Texas, having a family vacation home in another border state of Maine, and being the child of an ambassador, VP, and President and he had enough foreign policy experience to be a great President.  OK, another bad example).

8.  McCain campaign aides call her a rouge diva for failing to listen to instructions about the way to conduct the campaign.  (What are they complaining about?  Isn't that the definition of a maverick?)

And now one thing that should matter:   She is absolutely unqualified to be next in line to be the leader of the country in chaotic economic times at a time of war should anything happen to the oldest man who would be elected President.