That they chose two of the biggest corporate sellouts in Congress as their choice for president and vice president? As we can tell with recent votes on FISA, the Great Wall Street Ripoff and American militarism, there is scarcely a dime's worth of difference between Obama and McCain. Regardless of who gets elected, the cutthroats, thieves and psychopaths who run this country right now will have their bases covered, no doubt about that.

Why aren't more liberals disgusted that their party nominated a person devoid of qualifications for the presidency?

Conservatives of the old school may, in fact, be disgusted with the nomination of unqualified candidates like Sarah Palin. But those in control of the Republican party today are not embarassed. To the contrary, Republican leadership has a full-blown investment in an uninformed constituency. The party deliberately strives to deflect the political conversation from substance; it couches complex issues in simplistic, emotionally charged language that discourages critical thinking; and it puts up candidates, like Sarah Palin and George W. Bush, who possess a cunning combination of personal ambition, cluelessness and idealism, who are perfectly suited to push the agenda of bringing down the bar.

The rank and file of the Republican party will one day realize that they have been hoodwinked; the only constituents their current leaders really care about are the ones who can get into their country clubs.

What a fantastic article! Some of the must incisive writing I have seen in ages. As a non American I find it very heartening to see this. Thank god for the internet! (And the Americans who invented it I suppose). There is hope. :)

Palin's candidacy panders to a demographic that believes education is a chore; merely a prerequisite to getting a job.

With the emphasis of education shifted away from students and toward the grading of their standardized tests, it is not hard to understand why we are where we are.

This is a direct result of our failure, as Americans, to hold fast to free thought and the desire for knowledge; the higher purposes of education.

One cannot tell if a group of students truly appreciates art, literature or music by administering a standardized test, nor can one tell whether a pupil desires to continue learning after the test is completed.

It is only by communicating directly with students that we can alight the desire for intelligence. Only by understanding individually what drives and motivates each student can we align their desires with ours.

We need to imbue a thirst for knowledge that transcends the classroom and turns the world into a grand arena of learning and personal development.

Only the desire for knowledge can set us free.

"...there is scarcely a dime's worth of difference between Obama and McCain."

That's essentially how I rationalized it eight years ago, when I wasted my vote on Nader. Live and learn.

"Regardless of who gets elected, the cutthroats, thieves and psychopaths who run this country right now will have their bases covered, no doubt about that."

You know... Obama was not my first choice, nor would Biden have been my first pick for the VP slot. I don't 'see myself' in either of them, I don't 'identify' with them... and contrary to many rampantly false characterisations (from both ends of the political spectrum) I certainly don't view Obama as some sort of 'messiah'. I simply view him for what he is: an applicant for a crucial public service job. And, in the fullfillment of my duties as a member of the electorate, I have reviewed the resumes of all four of these applicants. My own finding, absent some as-yet-undisclosed information, is that the Obama-Biden team is nominally qualified to preside over our government, while the McCain-Palin ticket is not.

It's really down to this: one administration will attempt to control the extant damage to our nation and the other will attempt to propogate that damage. That we, on this thread, cannot agree on who is likely to cause more damage and who is likely to control it... merely shows that we cannot agree on what that damage is. Nothing new there.

To paraphrase General 'Buck' Turgidson, we are now faced with two potentially regrettable, but nevertheless, distinguishable post-election environments- one, where you've got a VP who believes that Bush II's pathological exercise in nation-building is "God's Work", and the other where you've got a President who believes that you don't fight terror by creating more terrorists.

It's Gerald Ford who was in the top 25% in his class at Yale Law School. The most salient feature of this board is the over-awed attitude of many to passing exams. Winston Churchill was an academic dud as he frankly confesses in his book "My Early Life". His "History of the English Speaking Peoples (4 volumes), written in the l950s, shows that Churchill had been seriously underestimated by his teachers at the elite (that word again!) Harrow.

Churchill had an obstinacy, an independence of mind, which was very evident when he was one of the first prominent British politicians to see the growing threat of Nazi Germany and when he vigorously opposed Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. His truculence and stubborness wouldn't have endeared him to any of his teachers and he never attended university or acquired a law degree. Perhaps he agreed with Bumble in "Oliver Twist" when he said "The law's an ass". Winston Churchill's mother, Jenny, was American and very much a free spirit. She might be amused, if alive today, to find that, in the land of her birth, politics is dominated by lawyers and that huge significance is placed on arid scholastic achievements in the rarified atmosphere of academia.

Hey, John Edwards, only months ago, was being tipped to be Obama's v.p. nominee. He was/is a lawyer too but, in the heel of the hunt, showed himself to be completely bereft of horse-sense.

@Teleologicus

"From the tenor and content of posts here it seems that a majority of contributors have yet to acquire sufficient experience of life and moderation of passions to render balanced and prudent judgments about such things as politics. They are not grounded and are easily swept away by their emotions. The capacity for sustained and sober reflection has not had time nor sufficient foundation in experience to develop and grow. Their judgments therefore cannot be counted upon to manifest wisdom and prudence."

Translation: 'Tut-tut! You malcontented rabble need to depart from this comment board and go gather some undefined life experience before you can intelligently hold forth on such matters of import as the political function of your own government. Go on, now- remove yourselves and don't come back until, oh... 2012 or so.'

----

If then. 2012 that is.

There is precedent for the view I expressed earlier. See Aristotle, Bk I Nicomachean Ethics. Teenagers -the category refers to emotional as well as chronological age- are simply in no position to form and deliver reasonable and prudent judgments about such things as politics, which require experience and moderation of passions to comprehend.

The teenager in politics -again the category includes those emotionally undeveloped and arrested as well as the calendar cohort- is typically naive, idealistic, brash, critical of authority and tradition, confident in novel and untested approaches, confused about his own motives, impulsive and prone to make sweeping judgments about matters he knows little or nothing about. His enthusiasms and biases are multiple and strong and he is easily misled by the mere strength of his convictions into supposing them established beyond doubt. He does not tolerate contradiction nor even a counsel of prudence and delay, for he is certain of his beliefs and demands they be applied instantly. He has little use for history and the lessons of the past and regards himself as superior in all respects to those who have gone before. He is rebellious, defiant, angry, finger-pointing, sanctimonious and almost wholly lacking in self-knowledge and realistic appraisal of others and the circumstances he confronts.

This is not a person one would wish to be in a position to influence, much less to direct important affairs. It describes the great majority of posters here as well as what passes for the brains of the present Democrat party. That is, people who have either never heard of the cautionary advice of the Delphic Oracle, or who choose to disregard it and risk the consequences.