Richard Bernstein: Do Palin's credentials compare to Truman's?
[Richard Bernstein writes for the International Herald Tribune.]
The word among Republicans seems to be that if Sarah Palin becomes our next vice president, she will be in the distinguished company of others who came to that office while young and relatively inexperienced, and yet, in the judgment of history, rose splendidly to the occasion when fate offered them the presidency itself.
In her rousing speech to the Republican convention last week, Palin put herself in the league of Harry Truman in this regard, declaring: "Long ago, a young haberdasher from Missouri, he followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency."
The obvious implication was that, like her, the man who coined the phrase about the buck stopping here was unknown to most of the country when he found himself a heartbeat away from the presidency. President Franklin Roosevelt's heart stopped beating just three months into the term, and Truman suddenly found himself a wartime commander in chief.
The other name mentioned in this regard, although not by Palin, is Theodore Roosevelt, the point being that he, too, served as vice president when, following William McKinley's assassination, he assumed the presidency in 1901, becoming, at 42, the youngest man ever to occupy the office.
And true enough, there are some real similarities between Palin and Roosevelt...
Read entire article at International Herald Tribune
The word among Republicans seems to be that if Sarah Palin becomes our next vice president, she will be in the distinguished company of others who came to that office while young and relatively inexperienced, and yet, in the judgment of history, rose splendidly to the occasion when fate offered them the presidency itself.
In her rousing speech to the Republican convention last week, Palin put herself in the league of Harry Truman in this regard, declaring: "Long ago, a young haberdasher from Missouri, he followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency."
The obvious implication was that, like her, the man who coined the phrase about the buck stopping here was unknown to most of the country when he found himself a heartbeat away from the presidency. President Franklin Roosevelt's heart stopped beating just three months into the term, and Truman suddenly found himself a wartime commander in chief.
The other name mentioned in this regard, although not by Palin, is Theodore Roosevelt, the point being that he, too, served as vice president when, following William McKinley's assassination, he assumed the presidency in 1901, becoming, at 42, the youngest man ever to occupy the office.
And true enough, there are some real similarities between Palin and Roosevelt...