Three Better Candidates For President

Not long ago I asked readers of this blog to name three politicians that you think would be better candidates for President than those currently nominated. I received some very interesting answers. Some former presidential candidates who did not make it through the primaries, some politicians that people wished would have run, and a few names who could very well appear on the ballot in 2012.

After mulling it over for a few weeks I have my own names to add to the list.

Larry....Mo.....Curly.

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Fred Thompson's Book Favorites

I read somewhere that one of Fred Thompson's most revered books is Barry Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative." I never read it (I know I probably should have). Have you read it? Do any of you who are readers of this blog have thoughts about this book?

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The Media's Religious Test

My husband likes to read the blog of Susan Wise Bauer. He uses one of her books as a textbook in the classes he teaches in Ancient Western Civilization and says that reading her blog helps him personalize the information in the book he uses (whatever that means).

Anyway, he pointed me to an article on her blog that is very telling. During a presentation she was giving at Princeton she mentioned in passing that her husband is a pastor. This resulted in numerous comments and questions about how she and her husband negotiated that relationship. Her audience simply assumed that an intellectual such as herself could not possibly share the same worldview as a Bible believing pastor.

I think that the same kind of dynamic has been demonstrated very dramatically in the current presidential election. First, the talking heads portrayed Mike Huckabee as a bumbling hick because he had once been a pastor. Never mind the fact that he had been a governor for more than ten years.

Then along comes Sarah Palin. She has been tarred and feathered, drawn and quartered, tried and executed by the media. Her sin? She has conservative Christian values.

It certainly appears that there is a religious test being applied by the media. If you have real religion you don't pass their test.

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VP Moderator Gwen Ifill To Release Pro-Obama Book

Journalist Gwen Ifill of the PBS program, Washington Week In Review, is scheduled to moderate Thursday's VP debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin. Knowing that it would be impossible to find a journalist in America that is completely unbiased regarding a presidential preference, I had hopes that Ifill would at least be fair, just as I thought her colleague from PBS, Jim Leherer, was fair in the McCain/Obama debate.

My hopes are beginning to wane. It turns out that Ms. Ifill has written a book, The Breakthrough, scheduled to come out in January right around the innauguration that aims to "shed new light" on Democratic candidate Barack Obama and other "emerging young African American politicians" who are "forging a bold new path to political power."

Obviously the timing of the book's release is no coincidence, but is intended to capture book buyers who are jubilantly gobbling up all things Obama as the first African-American takes the oath of office as President of the United States. In other words, an Obama victory in November is a foregone conclusion.

But what if John McCain wins the election? How would that affect Gwen Ifill's book sales? While I am sure her book will do well in either case, The Breakthrough, would certainly lose it's 'oomph' if Barack Obama fails to 'break through' his way to the Oval Office after all.

The fact that Gwen Ifill has not just a vested political interest, but a compelling financial interest in seeing an Obama/Biden win should disqualify her from moderating the VP debate. In all fairness, she should step down.

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