Oh, leave her alone!

I never thought I'd say this, because Sarah Palin makes my skin crawl, but the McCain staffers who trash her simply are not being fair.

If she's not qualified to be VP, who is responsible for putting her on the ticket? Many of these same McCain campaign "insiders." Not to mention John McCain himself.

According to legend, she and McCain met once and spoke on the phone before he chose her as his VP candidate. Think about your own job. How many interviews did you have? How detailed were they? It bothers me that the HR department at the agency where I work spent more time with me than John McCain spent with Sarah Palin before deciding to put her a (70-something) heartbeat away from the Presidency.

So let's leave Caribou Barbie alone and hope she simply disappears from the national stage forever. And let's be grateful that our new President is the one who is putting together the Cabinet that's going to help him run our country. He may have less experience than McCain, but his campaign ran more efficiently and suffered fewer leaks. He added Joe Biden to the ticket without uproar or internal dissension. He has demonstrated greater people skills and comforting judgment in these matters.

President-elect Obama. To borrow from Tom Petty, we got lucky when we got him.

PS I really do love those jackets Sarah Palin wore during the campaign. Aren't those navy buttons cool? I wish I had her figure so I could carry this stuff off.

The News from Greg Maddux Land

I thought it was a done deal that my beloved future Hall of Famer was hanging it up. But not so fast!

DANA POINT, Calif. -- If right-hander Greg Maddux doesn't follow through on his intention to retire, he'll be welcomed back to the Dodgers for the 2009 season, general manager Ned Colletti said …

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

LOS ANGELES -- In what likely amounts to a parting gift, Greg Maddux won the Gold Glove Award for the 18th time in the past 19 years ...

Please don't leave me, Professor! April won't be the same without you!

Blog Blast for Peace: An Open Letter to Barack Obama

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

As the leader of the most powerful country on the planet, you now have the ability to help make our world a more peaceful place. I like to imagine that, as you walk the halls of the White House, you will draw inspiration from the great men who served us before you … men who, like you, were great orators, and both warriors for liberty and believers in a peaceful, more unified world.

Thomas Jefferson
“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy."

Abraham Lincoln
“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”'

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

John F. Kennedy
“Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures."

“Our duty as a (political) party is not to our party alone, but to the nation and, indeed, to all mankind. Our duty is not merely the preservation of political power, but the preservation of peace and freedom.”
(Undelivered speech planned for Dallas Texas, 11-22-1963)

Doe more information about the Blog Blast for Peace, click here.