Mondays Missives

"Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, considers Palin "extremely responsive and smart" and says she is in charge when it comes to in-state services, such as emergencies and natural disasters where the National Guard is the first responder"

• The above not only serves to illustrate the picture well, it's a quote from the same article that detractors are using over and over and over that points out when federalized, the Governor has no authority over her states troops. It's meant to make her and her supporters somehow look bad when they compare her command role experience to Obamas experience. I doubt anyone assumed she meant to convey she commands those troops when they are federalized and deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan but, they are scared. I understand, we've all been there I suppose and when you are scared you do and say things you wouldn't otherwise. I remember I made a childish response to fear like that once- I was surrounded, the enemy was everywhere they wanted my blood. I didn't know what to do so I passed the ball off and still got massacred. Kill the man with the ball is hard.
• I think the point was she had to be the one to lay awake at night and wonder if her state had done enough to train their troops up before they are turned over to federal authority.
• She had to learn how/when/why to deploy her states troops and know after meeting them and spending time with them she'd be living with that decision.
• She had to live with the knowledge if her troops weren't adequately trained, led, equipped and in sufficient numbers and they were needed for a stateside response not only would people she was directly responsible for and knew personally suffer, she would be held accountable and would forever be remembered for this shortcoming.
• This may be a case of we'll believe whatever we want to believe but I simply cannot picture Obama standing among his troops in a flightsuit. I promise you, if he ever tried that not only would he look uncomfortably ridiculous, the perception as such by the troops would be painfully obvious and a similar op. picture would never make it to print.
• Part of the reason when someone like Palin comes out to a military exercise they wear a uniform is for safety. Flightsuits are fire resistant to an extent and she doubtless flew that day. Civilian clothes may also be inadequate for the environment as they might snag on equipment.
• If this blog were a stock and I were an analyst I'd be expecting the political component of it to peak right around early to mid November and drop sharply off back into pictures of local wildlife (including my kids) and goofy demotivational posters.