We should want leaders better than us

When Sarah Palin suggested that she was a good candidate for vice president because people could "relate" to her, I had to wince.

It seemed like another example of George W. Bush winning in 2000 because more people thought he was the kind of person they would like to have a beer with, another example of why America has far more problems than it did eight years ago.

I'm not even sure folks were right about the beer.

Here's the choice: Al Gore might have been pedantic, the kind of person who went on and on about boring subjects, but Ol' Dubya would have been snarky and sarcastic and might also have stuck you with a nasty nickname.

Throw in VP candidates Lieberman and Cheney and 2000 might have been the all-time worst year for guys you'd want to share a beer with.

Here's the question, though. Think of the people in the world with whom you most enjoy drinking beer, and then picture them in the White House. When I think about my three closest friends, I wouldn't want any of them within five miles of the Oval Office. All three of them have been through personal bankruptcies and two of them totally lack even a modicum of common sense.

The irony of it is, I can picture all three of them enjoying the heck out of Dubya's Flightsuit Adventure.

I don't want people like me running the government.

I want experts, people who have trained for it, and yes, wanted it badly.

I don't want a vice president who can't raise her own children well enough to keep them from getting pregnant or getting arrested.

I don't want a president whose only success in life came from using his father's name.

Jimmy Carter had the right slogan -- "Why Not the Best" -- even if he wasn't the right guy to fulfill it.

We ought to demand the best.

Not the friendliest.