So you think you can govern...

“I — I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink….So I didn’t blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.”

Okay, if you’ve been reading or watching, you have to know who said that in response to a question from ABC’s Charlie Gibson, and you can probably already guess on what side of the readiness fence I’m on.

What’s that? Not entirely sure?

So, we’re talking a one-time mayor of a town of maybe 6,000, generously 9,000, and less-than-one-term governor of a state that is at once the largest and smallest, or almost smallest, in the nation. We’re talking she of the “Bridge to Nowhere,” who supported it, only to abandon that support after the Congress had already said flatly no, and who, even then, greedily took the same amount of money, to be spent at the Alaska’s discretion, in welcome compensation. And we’re talking the same former mayor and same current governor whose 20-20 vision remains so exquisitely acute that she can. in the blink of a designer-spec’d eye, readily winnow obvious supporters from hateful “haters”. The same former mayor, the same current governor who, in keeping with some-or-another faith, does unto others the way she would do unto others of some-or-some-other persuasion.

Okay, so now we’re on the same page.

And while we’re flipping pages, let’s skim the resume (and, risking insult to the injury of McCain’s choice, this won’t take long): small-town mayor, governor for less than two years, like 21 months and counting, a stint on city council paving the way, with a reputation for vindictiveness and cronyism to fill the potholes.

Now, let’s quick-reverse through recent history: small-potatoes governor of a big state becomes president; values loyalty above else to honesty and openness; has, on any level you want to choose — oedipal, political, ethical, religious — something to prove; shoots enemies from the hip of utter and unforgiving righteousness…hmmm…

And, over the last eight years, under the guidance of he-who-must-be-obeyed in the White House, that has gotten us where, as a nation, a people, a civilization?

Can history repeat itself?

Alas, a country that blinked, as Sarah is wont to say, and got Bush, only then to outright elect the same son-of-a-Bush, can certainly choose a Bush by another name the next time around. I mean, just because we pledge allegiance to one nation under God, invoke, again and again, that God bless America, and call down the One and Only from every near mountain on high, doesn’t mean that we, as a country, in the form of our prophet-in-chief, can’t align ourselves, knowingly or not, with the devil. Let’s face it, the moral balance sheet is anything but on our side.

Witness Iraq and the now-they’re-here, now-they’re not WMD. Or that nebulous and, I’m really being kind, link between Sadam and al-Qaeda. Or, dare we mention his name in anything more than a whisper, the not-only-not-dead-but-still-alive Osama bin Laden, on whom, if you believe him, our current president, he of the swaggering, dead-or-alive dictum, has drawn a bead for, oh, the last seven years. And do we even have to talk about Katrina, let alone the current mess on Wall Street, let alone that pesky definition of that troublesome word “torture” and its locus, the foreshortened Gitmo.

Oh, c’mon, what in the same Lord’s name possessed us, or at least possessed those tens of millions of voters who made themselves the W’s enablers!

And, then, along comes Sarah.

Let’s see, at the risk of repeating myself: worst financial crisis since the Great Depression; ongoing war in Iraq, to the tune of $10 billion per month; the ground gained in Afghanistan all but lost; Osama still on the loose, dreaming of who-knows-what in his own response to the now-and-forever war on terror; and, closer to home, New Orleans still not New Orleans, now three heck-of-a-good-job-Brownie years after Katrina; tens of millions — I mean, tens of millions, as in almost 50 million men, women and children, as in one out of every six Americans — without health insurance in this, a nation of ostensible equals; a tax structure that benefits the haves and leaves the have-nots to fend for themselves.

And we, as a nation, are going to put Sarah Palin — to whom that oldie-but-goodie “I Can See Clearly Now” conjures images of the icy Bering Strait and nearby Russia and, by convoluted extension, unexampled prowess in foreign policy — the proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency, when the president himself would be the actuarially-challenged John McCain?

Time out.

There’s reality TV — and then there’s reality. And, right now, it is time for a reality check, if you, forgive me, catch my blink.

© 2008 by Dónal Kevin Gordon