PALIN AS SPECIAL NEEDS ENVOY

It's been bugging me all weekend -- and I'm sure it will win me no new supporters -- that Sarah Palin is saying what she will first devote her energies to as Vice President is special needs children.

Honorable, indeed -- the number of special needs children is advancing and they are often overlooked/shunned/pushed aside. However, I don't believe helping special needs children is the job of a Vice President; it's more for a First Lady -- or a First Man .

I want the Vice President to be an advisor to the President. I want my VP in the Oval Office bouncing ideas off the leader of the free world. Working on the economy, foreign affairs, the environment. It's pretty clear that a VP Palin will be pushed to the sidelines and thrown out in public to feed the base whever the pressure is on McCain. Do you really envision her sitting in a meeting with the National Security Council having a serious discussion with 4-star generals on how to handle Syria? I would hope that, God forbid, if she is the next VP, that this is exactly what her role will be, so that in case McCain croaks, she'll hopefully have enough knowledge to hold her own.

Shortly after she was chosen, I told a family member that she was a "farce" because she's so unqualified, etc. They responded, "You agree she would be ready in 4 years, though, right?"

I knew the easy answer to that is "she needs to be ready now, not 4 years from now," but I granted them their premise. This was before we knew how thorougly mis-informed she is on every important issue facing this country (including energy, which she claims to know so much about).

Now I'm not so sure. Would Palin be ready in 4 years?

I've already determined that her political career is finished once/if McCain loses. However, let's say they win. Where does Palin fit into all this? Seriously.

Her first major address was on Special Needs? Shouldn't her first major address have been on, oh, I don't know, confronting the terrorist threat? How about showing us exactly what she means when she says her area of "expertise" is in energy? An address on her vision for America's energy future would suffice.

Then again, who am I kidding? She can't even hold a press conference for fear that she will absolutely destroy the campaign. It's no wonder they made her first major policy address on special needs, an issue that anyone with 3 credit hours in public speaking could pull off.