President Palin?

It's indisputable that the first qualification a vice-president must have is the readiness to be president. In light of John McCain's age and health issues, that's particularly important this time around. We can debate Sarah Palin's intelligence, accomplishments, conservative bona fides, beauty, spunkiness, and marksmanship until they celebrate the summer solstice in Fairbanks next year. But if you like her on the ticket, and someone told you right now that McCain would win in November and have health problems next year that would either seriously impair his job performance or force him to step down, would you still support this choice? Of course that must be the operative question. Those who answer affirmatively say more about their intellectual honesty, I suspect, than Palin's qualifications.

Age is obviously a major factor here. Yes, Obama is also in his forties, only a few years older than Palin. How young is too young? Where do you draw the line? 40? 35? Why not 30? This is obviously fuzzy and subjective. But generically I simply don't think someone 44 years old is ready to be president. This is not Tbilisi, where the age guidelines for political and military leadership were lifted from the script of Logan's Run. Think about the people you know in their mid-forties. Or remember what you were like at that age. Or if you are that age, look in the mirror. I know a lot of very smart, extremely accomplished people in various professions who are Palin's age (and I'll be there myself in a couple of years). Purely in terms of "life experience" -- and under that rubric is a mix of confidence, maturity, perspective on human existence, and the steady internal gyroscope that's often a product of age -- none would be ready to sit in the Oval Office. It's almost strange to contemplate it. Hey, maybe I'm just projecting my own latent insecurities about age and accomplishment. Sort of like that first time, somewhere in your early twenties, when you suddenly notice that professional athletes your age are getting paid millions of dollars a year.

Of course Palin's age shouldn't be considered without context. What about personal and professional background? Some perspective: I've both lived and worked in Alaska, and have been to Wasilla. (If enough readers offer bribes, I might dig up a photo of me from the town. Between the bandana, weeks-old beard, and layers of mosquito repellent, I guarantee my anonymity here would be maintained. And by the way, considering the prominence of Alaska in the national discourse these days, I think more people should actually go there and have a look around instead of pontificating breezily about it as if it were one of the lower 48. It isn't.) Wasilla is a nice town in a great state. But there's Hawaii, Indonesia, Kenya, Washington, and the south side of Chicago. And there's Wasilla. There's absolutely no way you can stand in the middle of that small town and think that a 44-year-old whose formative personal and professional experience comes from there is ready to lead the free world. Yes, she's just barely got Juneau on her resume also. But unless you're ready to argue that the political landscape in the state with the lowest population density and the social dynamic in the Red Dog Saloon reflect the country as a whole, a short stint in Juneau -- the only state capital in the U.S. that has no roads leading into or out of it (how's that for some topical symbolism?) -- doesn't add a whole lot of heft to the experience column. Could we see the stamps in her passport, please? And perhaps a pop quiz about the difference between Shias and Sunnis, or the name of Pakistan's president?

We've seen this movie before. Don't the points that some on the Right are making in support of Palin sound dishearteningly similar in both tone and substance to ones made in 1988? Is the term Quaylin inappropriate? Those same conservatives who just discovered they're big Palin fans -- no doubt after first making a few phone calls to see what they think -- would do well to remember the lessons from twenty summers ago (that sound you hear is frantic Googling by the ruddy-cheeked young patriot set, stunned that U.S. political history didn't start with Monica). If they were really fans of Palin's, they'd prefer to wait a couple of election cycles instead of clamoring for a ticket to Quayle: The Sequel. But Republicans' Bush-perfected habit of subordinating competence to personal and political expedience continues. Throwing basically decent people into jobs they're not ready for à la Miers, Gonzales, McClellan, and Brownie should offend anyone who is truly interested in having competent people enter public service, because the inevitable result and ensuing public scorn make the best ones think twice before leaving the private sector. Hillary supporters, or women who might be tempted to vote for McCain solely because of Palin, should consider that dynamic. Hankering to see a woman in the Oval Office one day? The last thing you should want is for one who's not quite ready for the national stage to get yanked onto it. If she disappoints, your dream might be deferred for a long time.

Palin is a rising star with a bright future ahead of her. I like her libertarian streak, her open admiration for Ron Paul, her pro-life position, and her record on taxes, corruption, and wasteful spending. Her position on global warming, predictably, is less encouraging. (And I'm oddly comforted by her marijuana admission -- but can we please stop with the "I didn't like it" nonsense, a claim about as far from "I didn't inhale" as the width of a piece of rolling paper?) If McCain loses, hopefully any damage she suffers won't affect her future political viability. It would have been better -- for the country, conservatism, and ultimately Palin herself -- if she had a chance to mature a bit as a national figure and leader, away from the harsh scrutiny and 24-hour news cycle. But we've learned a lot about John McCain during this campaign. And in that respect, at least, his choice of Palin makes perfect sense.