Barbara Boxer on Sarah Palin: A harsh attack

As an unswerving member of the left wing of the Democratic Party, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California wasn't going to be much impressed with whomever John McCain selected as a running mate.

Still, her reaction to the pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is noteworthy for its sharpness, especially given Boxer's commitment to feminist causes. Here's Boxer statement:

The vice president is a heartbeat away from becoming president, so to choose someone with not one hour’s worth of experience on national issues is a dangerous choice.

If John McCain thought that choosing Sarah Palin would attract Hillary Clinton voters, he is badly mistaken.

The only similarity between her and Hillary Clinton is that they are both women.  On the issues, they could not be further apart.

Sen. McCain had so many other options if he wanted to put a woman on his ticket, such as Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe -– they would have been an appropriate choice compared to this dangerous choice.

In addition, Sarah Palin is under investigation by the Alaska state legislature, which makes this more incomprehensible.

Snowe, considered by many in the GOP a RINO -- Republican in Name Only -- never was a vice presidential prospect. Hutchison's name surfaced over the last few days as a strong possibility, but her stance in favor of abortion rights likely made her a non-starter for the McCain camp.

-- Don Frederick

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., makes a point during her address at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008. AP photo by Ron Edmonds

Comments

[McCain -08]

Thank you John McCain for selecting Sarah Palin as your vp. This is a good choice. I have always thought you were different in a good way from George Bush. Picking Palin proves this though. I am a democrat, Hillary supporter, but I will vote the John McCain ticket in november with a happy feeling. Again, thank you for thinking about us women.

[Mark in Spokane]

This is great! I find it absolutely hilarious that Boxer could even criticize Palin about 'experience' comparing her to Obama. The guy was a senator and has over 146 'no votes' since his tenure. He hasn't SPONSORED one piece of legislation since his dubious entry into Chicago politics.

When an elected official goes after corruption, balances a budget and fires people not doing their job, that's a great public servant, regardless of the party or gender. It is even MORE profound, when that person does it to their OWN PARTY! That, ladies and gentlemen, is simply unheard of in politics, they normally 'circle the wagons' and start talking about something else.

To the 'Femininsts.; what and who do you define as a role model? A totally self-made woman, mother of 5 kids and married to a union guy who's a blue collar worker? One that shatters a glass ceiling in Alaska that had been there over 100 years? A woman capable enough to protect and defend her family, feed them if required by hunting, skinning, fishing and an athlete as well?

If that's not the definition of a woman taking her life to the highest iteration of her own capabilities, fighting the odds and prejudices along the way, if that's not the exact definistion of what 'feminism' is about, you are being grossly intellectually dishonest with yourself.

Any public servant that has character and ethics gets my vote, she is a rare bird among the vultures such as Boxer and Pelosi.

In closing, I wonder why the Democratic majority running for the past 2 years an approval rating in the teens that is the lowest in the history of our country while Sarah Palin has one of 80%? Let character and results be your guide.

[Republican Folly]

Sarah has what Hillary supporters look for in a candidate, no penis. Ideology be damned. You go girl! This could be the term that gets Roe V Wade overturned.

[Woodrow]

I would rather date Palin than Boxer or any of the three Clintons. Nuf said.

[John McVey]

Why is/was Christine Todd Whitman not a VP option?

I even wondered, once, if she could be VP to Obama. Maybe the notion that she could be a good VP, to either side, answers my question. Still, I've never heard her name in the discussion.

[Dave]

Sarah Palin is McCain's Harriet Myers

[D Madsen]

As an undecided Hillary supporter, this pick is a slap in the face and cements my support for Obama

[Dr. Rude]

What a joke. Sarah Who? Maybe we now have a shot at Runner-up on the next Miss Universe Beauty Pageant.
Republican, Democrat or Undecided, you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to eat this one. We already had a DumbS...for president, we don't need a VP with a heartbeat away from taking the reigns of President of the same quality. The world is laughing their heads off and we again prove how our ignorance and stupidity.

[sbear]

I am not surprised, but simply very disappointed at most of the remarks on this page. Many commenters are misinformed or uniformed regarding Alaska, much less Sarah Palin. Before you comment - do your homework. Not by reading all of the biased material that is put out there, but research the facts. Then . . . comment all you like. There are many totally ridiculous remarks on this blog! Do your homework folks!

[Mitzi]

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant...
As I watched the Hollywood production of the last night of the Democrat convention, I thought to myself.
What a spectacle. How are we (Republicans) going to top all that drama. I should have had more faith.
Thank you John McCain
Job Well Done.

[J.]

I love how some HIillary supporters are voting McCain because of him choosing Palin. Palin is the same woman who called Hillary a whiner. Yeah, I'm sure Hillary will love to know that her supporters only wanted her in office because she is a woman and not for what she stood for. If, for some reason you really did believe in Hillary's issues, her and Barack were close to identical with their issues and yet, people are now flocking to McCain. Great, way to show how backward this country is.

[Robert Mack]

The LIBERALS are smarting. Just reading the posts, it's easy to see she scares em.

It's getting closer and Obama isn't way out in front like he oughta be, so let's check the polls in a couple of weeks?

If McCain jumps ahead......watch the libs go crazy. My guess is this gal is going to bring in @ 15% of the undeceided women in the middle.....and if that happens and Joe Biden makes a boo boo with his mouth...which he will.......we Republicans will be happy and so will Bill and Hilliary.

.

[LA Doc]

You gotta love the emotional wailing coming from the self-pitying, "Victimcrats" over Palin, especially over her "inexperience". Their desperate hysterics is just a sign of their childish insecurity over the electability of their own shallow, 2-faced, inexperienced cult-leader, oops, I mean candidate. Awesome move by McCain.

[Rick Bock]

Hello Free Thinking People!

With the addition of Sarah Palin to be his Vice President, John Mc Cain has demonstrated to all his commitment to reform Washington D. C., preserve the sanctity of life for the unborn and the desire to make America more independent of foreign oil by drilling domestic oil wells and developing alternative forms of energy.

We need the Mc Cain/Palin Team!

Rick Bock

[Jay]

I am stunned at McCain's decision. He undermines all of his "experience" arguments, putting the leader of a 9000 person village a heartbeat away from the presidency could not be more irresponsible!!!

[El Grito]

Can you say Mondale/Ferraro? No one else wanted the job, why risk a career on the rise (Jindal, Pawlenty, Romney) for a losing ticket? Desperate times=Desperate Measures.

[Robert Mack]

Some of these posts are funny...but that's the nature of blogging now a days.

She's corrupt, didn't graduate from an Ivy League school etc, etc, etc.

When some ding dong with a badge is threatening to kill my family.....I don't care if I'm a sitting governor or Sitting Bull......I want that crazy gone. But let's see what the investigation says.....my guess is she's sqeaky clean.

But then again these bloggers who know everything yet nothing say shes corrupt....go figure?

[chris]

In Denver, Hillary asked her supporters, "were you in this for me?" In other words, did you support a woman candidate simply because she is a woman, or (also) for the positions she takes? Hillary supporters who like Palin should take a Very Hard Look at her positions. She is the anti-Hillary. Also, can anyone say Supreme Court? If McCain/Palin win, goodbye choice.

[robert]

the most unswerving member of the left wing has gone after what increasingly appears an unsweriving member of the right wing. fair game to be sure. the timing certainly undercuts obama's bounce after the convention, and a brilliant speech in denver, the quality and substance of which one assumes the new gop vp choice couldnt' muster for another five years. if then.
should mccain be elected and doesn't make it, will we look back on this day with utter regret? the most powerful country on earth in risk mode, apparently having learned little of its responsibility for others after 9/11-- no one else outside the us will understand what we are saddling them with, after the past 8 years. its a lot to ask of an otherwise lovely face.

[Nan Sequitur]

Apparently the Democratic Party is pretty selective of the women it chooses to support.

The Democrat spokespeople get angry when the Republicans promote to the position of Vice Presidential candidate a pro-life woman who they can't play "gotcha!" with on account of her own choice to have her Down syndrome baby.

But they made their own decision to cast to the sidelines the pro-choice woman who was their early front-runner and who at the very least had first-hand knowledge of many operations of the White House, and in favor of a much-less experienced, younger male suit whom they felt would be more exciting to market to the voters and the media upon whose support and favor they rely.

I find it very ironic that considering abortion and the proposed empowerment of women have been keystones of this so-called "feminist" movement that does not recognize the value of and actually fights to minimize opportunities for women who do not think exactly as they do, they rolled over when the boy's club of the party decided to trade in the most visible and well-known champion their movement has had in years in an attempt to give tired old far-left ideas a new color and a fresh package which they hoped they could peddle to the American public as "change".

The Democrat Party touts "freedom of choice". And they chose sex appeal over party substance.

So Barbara Boxer should not even presume to scold John McCain for choosing pro-life Sarah Palin for his running mate when both the men and women of her own party decided a mature pro-choice woman as President wasn't part of the "change" they decided a younger male glamour candidate could deliver in their most recent "votes over values" debacle.

Mrs. Boxer goes public to declare Mrs. Palin to be "dangerous" and the "wrong" choice of woman for a top executive position at the White House because of her views on the value of human life. But oddly enough, Mrs. Boxer had no post-Convention comments or even criticism about how a popular and powerful champion of the pro-choice movement - a woman - was considered by her own party and verified by her own acquiescence to *also* be the "wrong" choice of woman for such powerful positions as President of the country or the Senate.

So what can we safely declare Mrs. Boxer and those people in her party who take up both her talking points and convenient silences to be?

Certainly not "pro-woman".

[E Fowler]

I think it's great that a United States governor, either democrat or republican, is on one of the tickets. Senators are generally uninspiring candidates and senators have signed on to be part of the problem they claim to want to change. Governors actually get to be in charge of their state as a chief executive and I think such experience is better than senate experience. Americans think so, too. It doesn't take too many fingers to count the number of senators who have been elected president since WWII.

[ecksman]

mccain just made his age a bigger issue. no one wants this woman to be president. but most america would be fine if biden had to step in.

[Kathleen]

Oh you're all SO smart, discussing a lady you don't know, don't have the facts about, and who comes from a state most of you have never visited. Do you think if there were any merit to this corruption charge that any Presidential candidate would even put her name on the list for consideration? Let's find out more about her -- and trust our boxer-vs-briefs media to find out every last detail -- she sounds like "real people" to me, but I'll wait to get some facts before I cast my vote.

[Kimberly]

Ah, Phyliis Schafly Lite. As the late great Ronald Reagan once said, "There you go again."

[Tamara]

As an Alaskan resident and have been for about 20 years, I applaud Sarah Palin. We are a proud state and contrary to popular belief we are educated people and can speak on issues beyond snow and bears. Before you go judging her, you should find out a little more about all the positive change she has brought to our wonderful state. Ignorance is not an excuse for nastiness.