Cityscape

John Adams -- had been v.p. under George Washington, but everybody knows that doesn't qualify as executive experience

James Madison -- co-authored The Federalist Papers and served as secretary of state under Jefferson, but sorry, no executive experience

John Quincy Adams -- a U.S. senator, a diplomat, a secretary of state, but no executive experience.

Abraham Lincoln -- freed the slaves, wrote the Gettysburg Address, fought the Civil War to keep the country intact, but no executive experience.

Harry S. Truman -- Desegregated the armed forces as president, dropped the bomb on Japan, presided over the Berlin airlift, instrumental in recognizing Israel as a nation, but....no executive experience.

John F. Kennedy -- Won standoff with the Soviet Union over missiles in Cuba, thereby avoiding armageddon, and put the country's space program on the fast track but, well, no executve experience.

Lyndon Johnson -- A creature of Washington if ever there was one, LBJ was at various times a U.S. Senator and a congressman before being named JFK's running mate in 1960. As president, LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act into law, helped usher in Medicare and Medicaid, and sank America even deeper into Vietnam. No executive experience, though.

I almost threw my remote at the dog on Sunday morning as I watched Tom Brokaw on "Meet the Press" interview Tim Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota. Pawlenty was in the unenviable position of having to defend the qualifications of Sarah Palin to be vice-president. Pawlenty himself had been high on McCain's running mate list, so it must have stung a bit to have to talk up the resume of Palin, who's been governor of Alaska for two years, and before that was mayor of a town of fewer than 7,000. And, with all due respect to Tom Brokaw, if Tim Russert was still with us, Pawlenty's beatific grin would have disappeared fast. Instead, Brokaw was far too accommodating to Pawlenty's evasions and non-sequiturs, which were on abundant display.

Brokaw asked how Palin could possibly be better than Mitt Romney on the economy, better than Tom Ridge (former Homeland Security chief and governor of Pennsylvania) on national security, and better in general than Joe Lieberman. Of course she isn't better, but Pawlenty couldn't say that. Instead, Pawlenty informed us, she has balanced a family budget sitting around a kitchen table. Brokaw didn't follow up, and instead read aloud from the editorial page of the Fairbanks paper, which is also questioning what in Palin's past qualifies her to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Pawlenty then avoided the question by attacking Obama's qualifications, raising points which are certainly relevant to a discussion of Obama, which this was not. But the most ridiculous comment Pawlenty made that went unchallenged by Brokaw was this one: "I think it's wonderful that she is a woman, but that isn't why Senator McCain picked her, and that isn't why she's on this ticket." Um, excuse me? I don't care what your political stripes are, no rational mind with even one political synapse crackling could believe that.

Having fumbled, Brokaw had a chance to pick up the ball a few minutes later, when he questioned Pawlenty about Palin's support of intelligent design. Intelligent design is, essentially, creationism dressed up to look like science. It posits that life is  too complex to be explained by evolution, so therefore an "intelligent designer" must be behind it. I wrote about this debate a few years ago here in Atlanta, when Cobb County schools pasted warning stickers in textbooks that included chapters on evolution. Never mind that virtually every scientist in the world considers intelligent design junk science and merely a sop to creationists. In any case, Pawlenty indicated he agreed that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution, and that intelligent design is "credible." Which is sort of like saying that, despite evidence that shows germs cause disease, there is a school of thought out there that the true culprit is, I don't know, the color yellow. It's patently absurd. Unfortunately, Pawlenty, having started to dig himself a hole, was lifted up by Brokaw, who changed the subject.

I was somewhat heartened a bit later, though, when I watched Campbell Brown try mightily to get Tucker Bounds of the McCain campaign to give specific examples about Palin's qualifications. He couldn't, but her persistence reminded me of Russert—tough questioning designed to get beyond the spin that politicians of all parties throw in our faces. But don't take my word for it. See for yourself:

Am I alone in wondering what journalistic purpose Jim Wooten serves at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution? I stress, journalistic purpose. It's clear, after all, what commercial purpose is furthered by his column. After all, we're a red state, so it only makes sense for the major paper of record to employ a columnist who represents that demographic. And there's nothing more reassuring than picking up a newspaper and having your opinions echoed back at you, laid out in catchy bullet points.

At the same time, it does seem as if there should be a rather hard and fast line between editorializing with an agenda in mind and simply parroting talking points from a party's playbook. I bring this up after reading Wooten's utterly confounding blog posts of the past few days. On Friday, after news broke that John McCain had found his running mate, Wooten posted, and I'm not kidding, "Pinch me. Yes! Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, will be on the ticket. She's got it all."

If there is a political universe where Sarah Palin has it "all" as a vice-presidential candidate, it's fair to say that universe is many billion light years from this one. And I don't think I'm going out on any ideological limb when I say that, given her resume, which by now we've all heard (up to two years ago, mayor of a town of 7,000; initial supporter of Ted Stevens' "bridge to nowhere," now opposed to it; and, according to opposition research done by her gubernatorial opponent, was starting a marketing company called "Rouge Cou," the French words for "red" and "neck.") In fact, using online translators may be pretty much the limit of her foreign expertise. Of course, she is commander of Alaska's National Guard and, as Cindy McCain pointed out (I'm not kidding again) to George Stephanopolous, "Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia. So it's not as if she doesn't understand what's at stake here."

Didn't you hear? This is opposite day! I'm reminded of 1984, the book by George Orwell we had to read in high school. Remember Newspeak? One of the words was "blackwhite," which is a way of "claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts." In Wooten's defense, however,  he did allow that a vice-president Palin would be "ripe for seasoning," which conjures a number of images. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Wooten's blogs. As the weekend wore on, the mainstream press conveyed to us that McCain's choice was a hit among conservatives (Palin likes guns and hates abortion) but her utter and complete lack of foreign policy credentials was cause for some concern, especially given that she'd be second-in-line to a 72-year-old cancer patient. These do seem like valid concerns (close your eyes and imagine a Putin/Palin summit, please) but Wooten was undeterred. On Friday evening, he compared his elation at Palin's selection with the "devotion most blacks have to Barack Obama and to the prospect that he could be the first black to occupy the Oval Office." Evidently, 300 years of hockey mom oppression are poised to be lifted. Wooten went on to recite the press release jargon put forth by the McCain campaign: Corruption fighter (Wooten provided no evidence); champion of ethics (no mention of the pressure she allegedly placed on an underling to fire a state trooper who was divorcing her sister); and, of course, she's a Washington "outsider." "Any misgivings I had about John McCain as the Republican standard-bearer," he wrote, "are erased by his boldness in choosing Palin." And then he signed off, "Oh, happy day." Again, I'm not kidding.

Of course, the long weekend brought us Gustav, but also news that Palin, the ardent champion of family values, is about to become a grandparent, because a boy named Levi knocked up her 17-year-old daughter, who'd reportedly been living for some time with an aunt and not under the same roof as the rest of her family. One wonders how the right would respond if a Democratic running mate released similar news, but never mind that. Should voters read anything into this? No, Wooten says. "It's no big deal," he informs us. In fact, it only makes her a stronger candidate. She's more human.

I don't know. Maybe that other political universe is closer than I thought.

In 1982, my older brother turned 18, which meant, at the time, that he was legally allowed to drink alcohol. Some months later, New York State, where we lived at the time, raised the drinking age to 19, which meant he was once again underage. Then he turned 19, making him legal again. Then the state raised the drinking age again, this time to 21, and there it remains today. One by one, virtually every state in America followed suit. By not raising the drinking age to 21, the states risked having their federal highway funds cut by 10 percent. It was a textbook case of Congress flushing the idea of federalism down the toilet.

Not surprisingly, none of New York's statutory modifications did anything to curtail the consumption rate of my brother or his friends. They found a way to get beer (there's always a way) and repaired to the woods behind Sunnycrest, the abandoned factory on the edge of town that once made the lining for coffins. No kidding. For my part, I learned the intricacies and protocols of binge drinking in various places: a friend's Duster, on a road that cut through a dark cornfield near the lake, in the kitchens of the houses of my friends' parents. And so it's gone, for the past quarter-century--America's teenagers, reckless with youth and the thrill of the illicit, breaking the law, acting stupid, and occasionally killing someone on the drive home from the country roads.

I thought of this when I read in today's New York Times that an effort by college presidents to open a dialogue on whether the drinking age should be lowered is, no surprise, under attack. Called the Amethyst Initative, the effort is an acknowledgment by more than a hundred college heads that the present drinking age of 21 isn't working. Instead of curtailing drinking, restricting beer sales to adults who just happen to be under 21 is leading to binge drinking off-campus, and leaving more and more young adults to develop a less-than-constructive relationship with alcohol. The math is pretty simple: If I enjoy a drink, but tell you can't have it and that it's bad for you, are you going to believe me or want to see for yourself?

Raising the drinking age to 21 was a flashback to the strain of puritanism that has never really left America's social thought. So it was no surprise that Amethyst's effort -- restrained, measured, adult -- was met with ferocity by critics. "Parents should think twice before sending their teens to these colleges or any others that have waved the white flag on underage and binge drinking policies,” the president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving said in a statement. The MADD president, Laura Dean-Mooney, suggested instead more alcohol education on campuses, and more Friday classes. She seems to forget a basic truth: Demonize alcohol and you're doing nothing but glorifying the abuse of it. Nevertheless, statements like hers persuaded the president of Georgia Southwestern State University to take his name off the petition. (Morehouse did, too.) Colleges, despite their reputations, are inherently conservative bodies, extremely worried about rocking the political boat. But hopefully more schools will jump on board and kickstart a dialogue about realistic alcohol use in young people, and how they might learn to drink responsibly, as opposed to not at all.

If you wanted a revealing look at Barack Obama and John McCain, you were probably right to pass by Saturday's televised forum at the Saddleback Church in California. Although the two men shared the stage for all of thirty-eight seconds, the event was touted as a glimpse of what's to come when the two candidates finally debate mano-a-mano next month. From my perspective, though, it was pretty much Dullsville: Obama came across as evasive and fatigued (despite his recent Hawaiian vacation) and McCain just seemed to fall back on the pat answers he's polished from a thousand stump speeches. (Maybe this wasn't a surprise, considering that at least some of the questions were run by the candidates beforehand.)

The event would have been significantly more interesting if Rick Warren, the evangelist head of Saddleback and author of "The Purpose Driven Life," had invited Georgia's Bob Barr to join the event. Barr, who's so far on the ballot in 38 states as the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee, has been scrambling for money and exposure. The campaign's raised less in the past ten weeks than Obama and McCain do in an afternoon. That leaves Barr dependent on events such as the debates to show America there's another option this November. The Warren forum would have been a great way for Barr to introduce himself to America. Unfortunately, third-party candidates are consistently relegated — by the media and the two major parties — to the sidelines during the campaign season. It's a shame, because the last time a third-party candidate was invited to the debates (Ross Perot in 1992), he forced the other two candidates to address issues they had been ignoring. Barr hopes to do the same, but it's not in the interest of the two major parties to invite him to the debates.

 Barr hasn't helped himself, though. As the nominee of the party of smaller government, Barr didn't do himself any favors by filing an injunction against Warren, claiming that by not having specific criteria for inviting candidates, the event amounted to an in-kind contribution to both men's campaigns. The judge, not surpisingly, didn't agree. Libertarians want less federal government, so it seems rather hypocritical to get a federal judge to step in when things don't go your way.

 Politico has an interesting post today. Seems Obama's visit to Atlanta earlier this month, which included a fundraiser, was to have included former Senator Max Cleland. But when campaign officials realized he's a registered lobbyist (for a company that helps soldiers recover from war injuries), the triple amputee Vietnam veteran was disinvited. Obama's camp has been diligent (obviously) in keeping their candidate away from lobbyists, and vice-versa. Still, in a state that Obama hopes will be in play in November (especially with Bob Barr polling in the double digits here), alienating a staunch Democrat like Cleland seems a bit, well, counter-productive.