Shirley Baechtold: We Don't Have To Hunt For Points Against Palin.

We don't have to hunt for points against Palin
Shirley Baechtold

Now that GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has entered her pit-bull mode, engaging in the kind of Karl Rove smear campaign that John McCain once denounced, she is fair game on a number of issues.

Let's start with the vice presidential debate.

After that debate, the media concluded that Sarah Palin had "exceeded expectations." Whose expectations? McCain's?

In a debate in which one of the candidates will be a heartbeat away from the presidency for the next four years, shouldn't voters' expectations be considerably high for both candidates? Shouldn't both debaters be expected to answer the questions they are asked?

Democrat Joe Biden did. Palin retreated into her comfort zone, giving scripted answers to questions that were not asked.

When Palin floundered so miserably in the Katie Couric interviews, I almost felt sorry for her. But one of her answers during the debate convinced me that she does not deserve voters' sympathy. As a candidate for a high political office, Palin is not just scary; she is dangerous.

When Palin agreed with Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that the vice president's role in the legislature should be expanded, I'm sure many viewers were dumbfounded.

Answering the same question, Biden explained the necessity of preserving the constitutional checks and balances on the three branches of government. Were the provisions of the Constitution news to Palin? After the assaults on the Constitution by the Bush administration, I hardly expected any candidate to publicly agree with Cheney on anything.

I would never question Palin's family decisions or personal beliefs, nor should anyone. However, her abysmal environmental record and her actions as Alaska's governor certainly raise questions about her character.

A dear friend, a distinguished physicist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, knew about Palin long before she burst on the national scene as McCain's running mate.

Although my friend is remembered for important scientific contributions in his field, I remember him as a loving husband, father and grandfather, a gentle man who could be inspired by any anomaly of nature: a tiny ocean creature struggling for life on a beach; a wildflower growing in a sidewalk crack; an unusual cloud formation; a dog that could not walk straight.

When a stray dog left her litter of puppies under his porch, he interviewed prospective owners and found homes for all but one. He kept Soosie, the imperfect one.

They were the quintessential odd couple: the scientist with the brilliant mind, the dog with the lopsided gait. Watching them together, I was reminded of the line in Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat in which the misshapen clay pot questions his maker and asks, "What! Did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"

Soosie didn't know she was imperfect; she had a loving protector who did not require perfection, a protector who believed that all animals, including imperfect ones, have a place in this world. His love of animals extended to those living in the wild, especially wolves.

He was a member and supporter of Defenders of Wildlife, and like others who abhor cruelty and inhumane treatment of animals, he was horrified when, in 2007, Palin announced a $150 bounty that would be given to hunters who could produce the left foreleg of any wolf that had been killed.

Alaska's Department of Fish and Game declared the bounty a necessary control of predators, but environmentalists and Alaskans opposing the slaughter say urban hunters had complained that wolves were preying on caribou and moose, the animals hunters preferred to kill.

Thanks to the efforts of Defenders of Wildlife and other wildlife organizations, the courts ruled Palin's wolf bounty illegal. However, Palin continues to actively promote Alaska's aerial hunting program.

If my friend had lived to see TV's aerial pictures of wolves and bears being shot and killed from planes, he would have been devastated. Upon his death, his family asked that contributions to Defenders of Wildlife's Save America's Wolves campaign.

On the Friends of Animals Web site, Marybeth Holleman begins her Sept. 11 article: "This past June, on a cool morning in southwest Alaska, fourteen wolf pups were pulled from their dens and shot in the head, one by one, by state biologists sanctioned by Governor Sarah Palin."

In Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's character, she tells cheering crowds of supporters: "He's not like us."

To that, I say, thank goodness.

Shirley Baechtold of Richmond is a musician and retired Eastern Kentucky University English teacher. E-mail her at sabaech54@yahoo.com.