Only in America would a woman, who has trouble putting together a coherent sentence, be offered $7M for a book on what it's like to be a colossal failure. Who in the world would buy this "memoir"? Do her fans actually read? Here's just one of her nonsensical responses when asked about her "new ideas" in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer last week at the Republican Governor's Conference in Miami. (Maybe Dubya made sense of it.)

"Gah! Nothing specific right now. Sitting here in these chairs that I'm going to be proposing, but in working with these governors who, again on the front lines, are forced to, and it's our privileged obligation to find solutions to the challenges facing our own states every day, being held accountable, not being just one of many, just casting votes or voting present every once in a while, we don't get away with that. We have to balance budgets and we're dealing with multibillion dollar budgets and tens of thousands of employees in our organizations."

That millions of Americans voted to put this person one heartbeat away from the presidency scares me. Not many things scare me, as I alluded to in last Thursday's post, but that thought sent cold chills down my spine. And that John McCain would put so little vetting into his choice of running mates only reinforced my belief that the man was not seriously wanting to win, or he's getting senile. How much more screwed up could our country get before McCain supporters realize, "We've got to change direction." The dumbing down of America has achieved dangerous levels. Lots of unwise decisions made under Republican mismanagement need to be reversed. I wouldn't know where to start, but I will pray every day and night that Obama and the Democrats do.

Time Magazine's cover this week may give us a clue on what is being expected of our President-elect.


From this cover story by Karen Tumulty: His top priority will be stabilizing the financial system, he said in an interview with CNN shortly before the election, followed by investing in renewable energy, universal health care, middle-class tax cuts and education reform. Then there are the other things he talked about at various points in the campaign: closing Guantánamo, withdrawing from Iraq, renegotiating trade deals, reforming immigration.


It's a good thing he's a young man.