Sep 24

So today I was informed of a little email Palin supports use to justify her VP choice.  Here’s a little breakdown:

From the Wall Street Journal:

Who Am I?

I am under 45 years old,
I love the outdoors,
I hunt,
I am a Republican reformer,
I have taken on the Republican party establishment,
I have many children,
I have a spot on the national ticket as vice president with less than two years in the governor’s office.

Did you guess?

I am Teddy Roosevelt in 1900.

So I searched on the net and found some information from Snopes.com regarding this email.

This is where the similarities stop.

First Argument: Academics

Roosevelt graduated from Harvard cum laude with a degree in government and history. Then went to Columbia Law School. He was also an author of many papers regarding politics and history.

Palin has a bachelor of science in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho.

Point: Definitely goes to Roosevelt. Palin studied how to act like she knows something and can do a decent job of speaking. Roosevelt KNEW what he was talking about. It’s also sad when I have more degrees then the possible VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!

Second argument: Military/Law Enforcement Experience

Roosevelt: Deputy Sherrif, capitain of the NY National Guard, colonel in the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, and veteran of the Spanish-American War.

Palin: Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Oh but wait, McCain was a P.O.W. so I guess she doesn’t need to have any experience there.

Point: Uh not Palin.

Third Argument: Politics

Roosevelt: Member of the NY state assembly, U.S. civil service commissioner, NYC police commissioner, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, governor of NEW YORK.

Palin: City council member and mayor of Wasilla Alaska, governor of Alaska.

Point: Well seeing as how Wasilla has a population of around 9,780, and Alaska has a population of around 683,478 (47th in the U.S.) compared to the population of New York City being around 2,050,600 in 1898. I am going to award the point again to Roosevelt.

The point of me ranting about this article is this: Do not try and argue a point as minute as “loves to hunt, is younger than 45, is a Republican, etc.” if the rest of the data does not correlate. What people need to understand is that this is a Job and a very important one at that. We cannot “glance” over someone’s resume and see that they graduated from a college, was a governor, and a mayor and consider that golden. We need to examine what college they attended (if you didn’t know, not all colleges are created equal), what city they were mayor, and what state they were governor. Without looking at the specifics, we don’t get the full picture.

So the next time someone tries to inform you something like this, please review the facts and surrounding information before you make a rash decision that someone is qualified to be VP because they too had similarities with a good politician like Teddy Roosevelt.