An editorial from www.newsNH.com

IS IT ALZHEIMER'S?

For months John McCain has been saying that Barak Obama is too inexperienced to be President. Then, what is the first major decision of Presidential Candidate McCain? It is to choose as vice president someone who has light years worth of LESS experience than Obama. What is important here is not how this reflects on Alaska's Sarah Palin, what is important here is what this says about John McCain's judgement and mental state.

Let us pause and look back at another elder Republican: Ronald Regan. Regan's memory lapses were treated as a running joke during the last years of his presidency, but they may have masked a much more serious issue. As we all know, Ronald Regan eventually developed a full case of Alzheimer's Disease. This was a tragedy. It was a great hardship for Nancy Regan and the Regan family members. All us should have sympathy for the entire Regan family. However, the memory lapses indicate that Regan was suffering from the beginning stages of the disease while he was president.

No one in America had the guts to acknowledge that the man who had his finger on the launch button for thousands of nuclear missiles was starting to go senile. This was just too terrifying, and it was swept under the rug. Nevertheless, with John McCain, the question must be asked: what do you do when a President's judgement is so impaired that he is a danger to the entire world?

Sarah Palin as a-heartbeat-away-from-being-president indicates that McCain is not thinking very clearly. This kind of muddled thinking may be a symptom of the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease.

Let us unequivocally state that Alzheimer's is not a moral lapse, or an ethical deficiency; it is a brain disease, but it is a disease which impairs both memory and judgement. You can't make smart decisions if you can't remember why you have to make a decision. Both Reagan and McCain may be honorable people, but we live in a dangerous world, and to have a leader who has fuzzy thinking will only make it more dangerous. Of course, everyone of advanced age does not deteriorate at the same rate. For example, I am teaching an 85-year-old neighbor how to code in HTML, so indeed some old dogs can learn new tricks. You have to judge each person as an individual case, but the case of John McCain does not look promising.

If you read the Karl Rove Manual of Wedge Politics, then you will know that, for Republicans, selecting a female vice president could attract the disenchanted Hillary Clinton supporters, and this might be a smart enough strategy to swing a close election. However, given that even those of us who opposed Hillary-as-President recognize that she is both smart and experienced, then to get Clinton supporters to vote Republican, you would need a female vice president who is smart, plus experienced. This is not Sarah Palin, not by a long shot!

There are Republican women who might meet a standard for excellence. Although I disagree with most of her policies, Condoleezza Rice is both smart and experienced, but she would be too closely tied to the Bush/Cheney disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan to do the Republicans much good. If McCain wanted to look outside the Washington beltway, someone like Meg Whitman might be smart enough--after all, she invented eBay--but again there is a lack of foreign policy experience. But Sarah Palin? Does John McCain really think that she is qualified to be a heart beat away from being the Commander-in-chief of the world's most powerful military machine. Again, is this what McCain thinks? If so, then John McCain may be starting to slide into senility.

Sept. 2, 2008