Can We Risk This?

Lawrence Lessig is a Stanford Law School professor, political activist and specialist in political corruption. In this 12-minute video, which you can view below, Lessig paints an absolutely undeniable portrait of Sarah Palin as "the least experienced" Vice Presidential candidate ever, unless you also count Chester Allan Arthur (even less than her) and Spiro T. Agnew (similar to her). Of all the rest of the VPs in American history, and there have been 46 of them, they were men with vastly more experience than she has.

To be fair, let's also compare her to the only other woman ever on a major party ticket, Geraldine Ferraro. Ms. Ferraro graduated from Fordham University Law School in 1960 (one of two women out of 179 total graduates) and became a lawyer in 1961. She worked part time with her husband's real estate firm while raising their three children, and then was appointed Queens County Assistant District Attorney in 1974 by her brother. She was elected to Congress in 1978 and served six years. During those six years, she was a protege of House Speaker Tip O'Neil. She was Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus, and served on multiple committees. She chaired the Democratic National Convention in 1984, the year she was picked by former Vice President Walter Mondale to be his running mate.

So there you have it: lawyer, prosecutor, Congresswoman, party leader. Palin has had leadership experience too, but Ferraro had six full years on the national stage before becoming a VP candidate. Unlike Palin, her voting record and her accomplishments were also in full view of the press (which ultimately became her undoing as she was vilified for the questionable deeds of her husband).

But, as Lessig points out, so what? So what that Palin has the least amount of experience of any VP ever. Well, so what, until you realize that of the 46 VPs we've had in history, 20% of them went on to become president. With McCain being the oldest potential president in history and having been stricken with malignant melanoma three times, the odds of Palin becoming the least experienced President ever is at least 20%, if not more (actuarial tables aside). So then the question no longer becomes "so what?" but "can we risk this?" After eight long years of failure, of antipathy towards Congress, of indifference to our allies, of sabre-rattling toward our enemies, of disdain for the rule of law, of unwarranted secrecy, of disdain for science, of dismissal of any view that doesn't comport with "gut instinct" -- after eight interminably long years of increasing fascism, theocracy, and now socialism -- can we risk her becoming President?

NO WE CAN'T. AFTER EIGHT YEARS, WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH!