McCain picks a ten.

9-3-08 SHORT HILLS: We’re back in NJ. In VT we were wearing jackets and building fires, but here it’s hot and humid and buggy, not that VT wasn’t buggy also. The grass planted by the gardeners is coming in nicely, but the dogs are running around, retrieving, barking at dog walkers on the road and, thus, tearing up the fragile new grass. I did some of the clean-up of the broken branches and trees injured in the most recent storm damage and took a car load to the dump.

I am astonished by McCain’s choice for Veep. Sarah Palin seems naive about affairs outside of Alaska and supports and believes in everything I’m opposed to. The choice seems to have been made impulsively by McCain, reminiscent of the impulsive Mr. Bush. I thought we had had enough of shoot-from-the-hip leadership. We don’t need more presidents who decide with their gut feelings.

Ms. Palin is against reproductive choice, sex-ed in school, or apparently anywhere else judging from hers and her daughter’s OW pregnancies. She disbelieves in climate change, alternative energy development, and gun control and is an NRA member. Paradoxically, it would seem, she believes in abstinence before marriage, but not birth control. She is a religious fundamentalist, a creationist, home schooling supporter, book banner, hunter. She supports drilling in ANWR. Letterman said he thinks he saw her family on the Jerry Springer show. I bet there’s more juicy stuff to be reported, more DUI's or more abuse of power. In sum, she's a ten out of ten, right winger.

NJ blooms: rose-of-sharon, hosta, lots of fall weeds.