Well, for example, if McCain were to keel over six months into his Presidency, Palin would step into the oval office of a fully functioning White House with a complete staff and a cabinet set up by McCain. If she were running for President, we’d have to believe that a Washington outsider from Alaska would have the connections and knowledge to put together a cabinet and staff the myriad departments that will need to be staffed. This is a huge challenge. She she inherits a running McCain White House, she’d be surrounded by people chosen by McCain who would help her through the transition, give her advice on tough problems, etc.
I didn’t say that. I said that it’s possible to be qualified to be VP and not be qualified to be President. This is one way. There are many fine executives that can take an existing company and run it smoothly for a time. Not all of them are capable of building one from the ground up.
And one of the qualifications a Washington insider brings to the table is connections. And you need connections to get along in Washington. You need to know the players so you can choose them intelligently for your cabinet. The kind of knowledge you gain after years of working with someone is invaluable when sorting out the various personality conflicts and such that might arise if you mix the wrong people together.
I’ve heard that if McCain gets elected, he may not find enough Republicans to staff his administration, because so many of the top guys have left government.
I think building a good cabinet is one of the most important skills a President needs. If you’re getting a cabinet handed to you, it’s okay if you don’t have that skill.
How long a time? While most of the federal bureaucracy could function as well (or perhaps even better) without the president for a lengthy period of time, military and foreign policy matters seem to require daily or almost daily attention. There’s slightly more to lose in running this country poorly than causing shareholders’ stocks to plummet.
I think the basic problem with Palin is not so much her lack of experience but her near complete lack of knowledge about major national issues. There is not much evidence that she has thought seriously about the big issues that would confront a President. You can’t learn that stuff in a few months; at best you will learn a few pre-packaged talking points by your consultants. And it doesn’t help much having experienced people working under you; the top person needs to have a thorough mastery of the issues in order to ask the right questions and make the best decisions. The chaotic Iraq policy of the last several years is a good example of what happens when the top guy doesn’t know much and his subordinates are working at cross-purposes.
It doesn't help that Alaska is a small(in population) and highly unrepresentative state so a couple of years as governor there doesn't really teach you much about national issues. For example when it comes to energy (the one national issue which Palin is trying to claim some expertise in), Alaska's interests are pretty much the opposite of the rest of the US. Alaska is an oil-exporter and benefits from higher oil prices whereas the US as a whole obviously doesn't. Energy at the national level involves a much wider range of issues (nuclear energy, conservation etc.) than in Alaska and there is no evidence that Palin has any knowledge of those.
In addition there is very little reason to believe that Palin has the intellectual capacity to quickly master difficult issues or even master them at all. Certainly her education and her positions on creationism and global warming don’t suggest someone who is very bright.
If you can’t step in and take care of business if the President trips and breaks his neck as he turns to wave to the crowd after taking the oath of office, then you’re not qualified to be Vice President. Period.
Test of Loyalty is not the same as a Loyalty Test. The connotations are considerablly different, which is exactly why the swiftboaters used “Loyalty Test”. Note that several of the members of her staff were loyalists to Palins opponent and had campaigned vigorously and publicly for him, and most were his personal poltical appointees.
A “test of loyalty” has the connotations of something that the “tester” checks on the results of. A “loyalty test” has to connotation of something that the testee takes.The connotation is considerably different.
Please spell out the difference in connotations further, preferably with examples, because I’m not seeing it, and it looks like you’re engaged in some the finest hairsplitting I’ve seen in a long time.
That’s your opinion. You were asking how someone could possibly be qualified to be VP and not President. I gave you an answer.
Do you think Geraldine Ferraro could have stepped into the White House on day 1 given her voluminous experience as one of 435 House members and built up a qualify, well functioning cabinet? The answer is, “Of course not.” She would have had to appeal to her party leaders and the previous administration to help her, but then she would have lost control of the Presidency to some degree. The same would happen to Palin. If McCain is hit by a bus on inauguration day, I’m quite certain that there would be plenty of jockeying as leaders on both sides tried to gain influence by helping her set up a cabinet. She’'d lose control over her own message a bit, and if she tried to assert herself she’d probably have a rocky first year or so as the cabinet pushed back. But either way, the Republic would not fall.
There’s already precedence for this: Carter was an inexperienced outsider who made it to the Presidency - he didn’t have the connections to staff the White House with Washington insiders, so he brought in outsiders with little experience like Hamilton Jordan, and it caused problems. I don’t remember people claiming that Carter was clearly unfit to be President.
If experience was what really mattered, Bob Dole should have beat Clinton.
I see the distinction at which you’re aiming, but I don’t see that distinction as being common usage. For most people, “test of loyalty” and “loyalty test” are interchangeable in common parlance. Not to mention that it makes no particular sense in reference to Palin: firing someone who supported your opponent in the election has nothing to do with tests unless you’re using it as synonymous with ‘criterion’.
I’m a former English major, and writing has been part of my job for over 15 years. In my opinion, that’s an absolutely ridiculous distinction, one that is in no way supported by common use or understanding of the English language. There’s no difference, by connotation or otherwise, between “Test of Loyalty” and “Loyalty Test.” They’re the exact same thing.
The distinction you’re making appears to be a remarkably contorted attempt to weasel out of being shown to be wrong.
Loyalty tests or tests of loyalty are only useful when conducted in the present. Your example of a “test of loyalty” isn’t a test at all since the answer is known from the outset. Your example of a “loyalty test” is useless because again the purpose of a test is to demonstrate something now, not sometime in the future, potentially months or years away.
Really? Then why do the swiftboaters use “loyalty test” when Palin used “test of loyalty”? They (and you must also ) know that the connotation is very different.
No. That’s absurd. They are two absolutely synonymous phrases. Making this kind of ridiculous assertion doesn’t make it true, no matter how many times you repeat it. It only makes it clearer and clearer that you’re incapable of admitting you were wrong.
It’s one of those things I can’t believe I’m even arguing about. It’s at the level of someone arguing that “soda can” and “can of soda” actually have two different meanings.
In the interest of fairness, though, I invite anyone and everyone else reading this thread to comment. Anyone else agree that there’s some subtle yet important distinction of meaning between the phrases “test of loyalty” and “loyalty test?” Seriously?