I thank Matthew Ladner for his Sept. 8 op-ed "The Democrats' Palin Problem". It was hard-hitting — except in his failure to directly level a single criticism of the GOP's ticket. And it offered powerful arguments for why Ms. Palin will, come Jan. 21, be suited to assume the presidency if needed: She led a "successful campaign against corruption" (though Mr. Ladner offers no source for this statement), she has a "warm," "refreshing" personality and she demonstrated "leadership" during her RNC speech (presumably by guiding the adoring audience to applause). Palin hasn't served on the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, as Obama does, nor does she have any notable foreign policy experience, but she does bear an "indifference to intense scrutiny," which, as President Bush has shown, inevitably leads to excellence in public service. Well, Mr. Ladner certainly has me convinced!
As Stephanie Brown correctly noted in her op-ed from the same day, political debate at Tufts often over-focuses on "superficial" issues. That quote, incidentally, was buried in a piece calling certain posters "Soviet"-like, caricaturing Obama as a "messianic" figure and insisting that the word "change" is overused. She also deplored "hypocrisy" and incivility in political discussion, yet signed off with two incredibly patronizing sentences – but I digress.
Here are some non-superficial issues no amount of right-wing howling can conceal: The McCain-Palin ticket represents a sure continuation of the Bush Administration's dangerous command of our armed forces, pathetically regressive taxation, gleeful explosion of the national debt, illegal torture and politicization of the federal government, abuse of power, unconstitutional shirking of oversight by Congress, ghastly selection of federal and Supreme Court justices and other disgraces. Small wonder, then, that Mr. Ladner and Ms. Brown fall over themselves to vilify Democrats and the better choice their Obama-Biden ticket offers.
–Matthew Diamante, Class of '09
