To the editor:

So much can be said about Sarah Palin, but more revealing and ominous is how and why McCain chose her for the second highest office in the land.

It’s not hard to speculate that during the highly viewed Democratic convention the McCain camp crunched numbers and found likely VPs unlikely to draw enough votes. So he/they made a snap decision that blindsided even most in their own party – a wild pick that might work, might not (i.e., a crap shoot), that would shake things up and direct focus away from the Democrats. Although desperate, calculated, arguably not “country first,” and pandering to women, it did draw everyone’s attention.

According to Elizabeth Busmiller and Michael Cooper (“Conservative Ire Pushed McCain From Lieberman,” New York Times, Aug. 30), “the process reflects Mr. McCain’s history of making fast, instinctive and sometimes risky decisions. ‘I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can,’ Mr. McCain wrote : in his 2002 book, ‘Worth the Fighting For.’ ‘Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.'”

Of the many reasons to not elect McCain president, all pale in comparison to this. In a perilous world where the words and actions of a commander-in-chief can be a matter of life or death, precious few instances will call for a crap shoot. Hasty, risky, and often mistaken decisions and their consequences are not something that Americans, or the rest of the world, can afford to live with.

Christy Kennedy,
Lawrence