GOP: the Party of Willful Ignorance

It's official now. The Republican ticket for the White House has a campaign strategy to keep the voters as ignorant as possible when they walk into the polls on Election Day. They have made every effort to keep the press as far from Governor Palin as possible since McCain announced her as his choice for the ticket (they even went so far as to kick reporters out of a Palin photo op at the UN yesterday). They only let carefully chosen people do interviews (she has only given two, to date), as they carefully control access -- and yet if the press, hungry for information, actually takes it upon themselves to find out what they can about her, the McCain campaign squeals like a stuck pig (lipstick or no!), claiming that the media's effort to cure the American public's ignorance is some sort of a violation. They want the voters to know as little as possible about their VP when they go to the polls. Ignorance, in the House of the GOP, is bliss (let's not clutter our pretty little heads with knowledge!). What is it they are afraid of? Has knowledge and information become so elite to the GOP that they are now campaigning against it?

Evidently so. John McCain, who used to throw BBQs for reporters at his home, has suddenly become very anti-press. He talks to them as little as possible, and now is also attempting to avoid unscripted appearances before the American people -- he doesn't want to show up for the debate on Friday night. What does this say about his ability to communicate with the American people if he is elected president? And if he can only handle one task at a time (his reported excuse for trying to weasel out of this Friday's debate is that he wants to focus on the economy), how is he going to handle the ridiculous level of multi-tasking that is required of the leader of the free world?!? The President of the United States cannot just tell the world that we won't be dealing with foreign policy issues this week because we'll be grappling with an economic crisis -- this is a job that requires one to deal with whatever comes along whenever it happens -- without making excuses and complaining that it's too hard.

Anyway, that is my initial reaction as I digest the news of this afternoon. I'm going to go watch the news now, with a computer on my lap, and see what others are saying about the day's events...

PS. As far as leadership goes, when the country is in a crisis, the last thing you want to do is to chew the scenery and cry that the sky is falling. That's just going to make things worse.