What ever happened to kindness?

I am not the world’s most enthusiastic Obama supporter, but enough of my positions are close to his that I feel comfortable voting for him. I don’t feel like the Republican party addresses my concerns, but I’v never actively hated them, or regarded them with the ridicule that I see in a lot of my Democrat peers. I understand that 2008 is an election year, and people will do what they feel necessary to try to get elected. STILL I was disgusted by both Rudy Guiliani and Sarah Palin’s speeches. Guiliani has no hope of getting elected to a higher office than the one he’s already held, so it didn’t hurt him to give a nasty, unsubtle, totally negative speech about the Democratic candidates. He has nothing to lose and it bought him a little goodwill from people who six months ago wouldn’t have spit on him if he was on fire.

But I was totally unprepared for how nasty Palin’s speech was. She’s been raked over the coals by a lot of people in the last week, but the Democratic ticket did not participate in the very public rehashing of all of her family’s business. They didn’t condemn either her or her daughter, and didn’t question Palin’s decision to stay in the presidential race. So why would Palin give such a dirty speech, and take cheap shot after cheap shot at Obama? The qualifications and half-truths were bad enough, but outright lies about death taxes and clean coal really make me wonder why the Republican powers that be would think it necessary to craft and deliver this speech. It definitely played to the rabid base in the convention hall, but I can’t imagine it going over well with moderates. And for somebody who considers herself a strong and committed Christian, I really wonder how such a dirty attack could be considered in any way Christ-like. In terms of delivery, she totally nailed her speech. In terms of content, Ms. Palin did little to solidify her own party’s positions on issues and gave the kind of light-on-actual-information speech that Republicans often accuse Obama of giving.