McCain's VP choice is a gimmick

Wow! So in the span of about 2 hours I went from sitting on my couch having a glass of water and posting an iReport video, to having it shown on CNN, having it posted to the CNN homepage, and later this afternoon I will be doing a live call-in on CNN International. (7p Eastern, 5p Mountain should you get that channel.) In 4 hours since I've posted the video, it's had over 80,000 views.

Thanks to everyone who is stopping by as a link from my CNN iReporter profile.

I just wanted to take a minute to better flesh out what I'm saying about Sarah Palin as McCain's VP choice.

She absolutely deserves congratulations, there is ZERO doubt about that. It is, hands down, an historic choice.

Many comments on my video have started with the inexperience arguments. I don't want to make that one quite yet, even though I briefly mentioned in my video. The larger point is that the only way to view this pick is as a political gimmick. When Hillary Clinton was not chosen as the Vice President, Republican strategists clearly picked that as an opportunity to steal disgruntled voters. McCain is just trying to bait voters into voting for his ticket because he has a woman on it. This has zero other motivation than she's a woman.

This is clearly a political gimmick. It's as simple as that. If she were a man with these qualifications, she never would have been chosen. That alone shows that all McCain is doing is playing a political game. He thinks American's are dumb, and that those who wanted to see a woman in the White House wanted it simply because she was a woman, and that's not the case. Clinton Supporters were such because they supported her as a strong woman, AND her policies. Sarah Palin could not be farther from Hillary Clinton as a politician.

It makes me sad. John McCain thinks that America is stupid and will fall for this. He doesn't care about making our country better, he just cares about getting votes so he can get to the White House. He said it himself in his own books, he has the ambition to be President and that's why he's running. It's unfortunate, we need better than political gimmicks and a candidate who only wants to play games at such a trying time as this for our country.

Olympic Mettle

I've been hearing an awful lot about the medal race between China and the United States, and a lot of griping about judging in different sports, and dominance of certain athletes in certain categories. (ahem, michael phelps, and the chinese "women's" gynmastics team.)

And while that's all well and good, we have to remember that it's not all about dominating. In some respects it's become almost jingoistic. I understand the problems some people have with things, especially with the judging of some of the women's gymnastics, and I fully fully believe the IOC should be investigating the Chinese possible use of underage girls. The IOC investigates possible cheating in the form of doping, why should they not investigate this form of rules breaking?

But I digress. Let us not forget the point of these games: recognizing the amazing feats of human ability. HUMAN ability. Yes it's nice to get some national pride by a swimmer (or gymnast or martial artist or whatever,) beating the competition, but why aren't we satisfied with how amazing they are in general? Yes Alicia Sacramone screwed up, it happens. But she still owns a silver medal. Do you? No, you don't. She's still a gymnast that's 1,000x better than 99.99% of the rest of the WORLD. She can say, without question, that she is better at what she does than more than six and a half billion people. Why can't that be great in and of itself? Why do we have to bitch about judging and complain that we should have been the best but we weren't? She's still absolutely AMAZING. They all are. Whoever finished last in gymnastics? They're amazing too.

Whoever finished last in kayaking? Whoever finished last in table tennis? Whoever finished last in the most obscure summer olympic sport? They're all amazing. Every single person who went there and competed with no other help than their natural ability is an absolutely amazing person.

I especially want to take a second to recognize the athletes who have won first ever medals for their countries. Yes, I'm aware I just railed about the unfortunate nature of jingoism and excessive national pride in the Olympics, but that mostly applies to the countries who are head and shoulders above others in the medal count every two years. We should take time to really point out these feats, and recognize athletes from countries like Mongolia and India who represent considerable Olympic spirit and have finally seized their opportunities and have won their first gold medal, or in some cases first ever medal.

How must that feel? The first ever person in history from an entire country who has won an Olympic medal. That's national hero stuff, right there. It really makes me want to put aside petty differences, illegal occupations, and shake hands with someone different than me. Could you imagine what we could do if we constantly possessed the best in Olympic spirit all the time?

These people are amazing. Let us not forget that.