This just in: The presumed frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination is not qualified to serve as commander in chief, according to recent polls.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/11/16/cnn-poll-most-americans-say-palin-not-qualified-to-serve-as-president/

Yet there she is, the subject of water cooler talk all across the nation as she hypes her book, “Going Rogue.” I’m talking, of course, of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who quit her statewide office halfway through her first term.

Slightly more than half of all Republicans think Palin is qualified. A fraction of Democrats would say she is capable of serving as president. Independents split somewhere between partisans on both sides. All this comes from a CNN/Opinion Research Dynamics survey, which is generally considered to be one of the better political polling outfits in the country.

Republicans have no shortage of potential candidates who are actually qualified to serve if elected. Former Govs. Mitt Romney (Mass.) and Mike Huckabee (Ark.) come mind.

But their standing pales in comparison to Palin’s — at the moment.

Thank goodness that nothing is permanent in politics, which is something Palin is likely to find out the longer she lingers under the glare of the public spotlight.

The shuttle Atlantis has just launched, with six more shuttle missions to go before NASA retires the fleet.

So help me, ever since Jan. 28, 1986, I still freeze at the 73-second mark of these shuttle flights. That’s when the mission communicator tells the shuttle, “Go at throttle up.”

It was at that point during that January launch nearly 24 years ago that the shuttle Challenger blew up, killing all seven astronauts on board and sending the nation into a prolonged period of profound grief over its loss.

Atlantis has entered orbit. All is well. And I’ve cleared the lump in my throat.

It will return at the end of the mission, when the ship re-enters the atmosphere en route home. History reminds us that on Feb. 1, 2003, Amarillo’s very own Rick Husband and his crew died when the shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas on its way home.

These space flights perhaps have bored millions of Americans. That’s too bad. They surely are never “routine.”

Godspeed, crew of Atlantis.

A utility company is considering some routes to string power lines across the High Plains.

It is my sincerest hope that they do not stretch them across Palo Duro Canyon.

The company is Sharyland Utilities. It will conduct two public hearings this week, Tuesday night in Wildorado and Thursday night in Panhandle. They’re giving residents a chance to comment on proposed routes for the lines that will carry electricity generated by wind turbines.

I’m becoming more of a fan of wind energy all the time. It’s clean, it’s renewable and it’s ours. Man, we’ve got plenty of it throughout the High Plains.

But we have to be mindful here of protecting one of the true treasures of Texas. Palo Duro Canyon should not have its horizon blighted by transmission lines. Surely the company can find routes that take the lines away from the canyon rim.

The canyon panorama is just too spectacular to be soiled with sight pollution.

What gives with these critics?

Some lawmakers, chiefly Republicans, have raised objections to the Justice Department’s decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Muhammad to New York to stand trial for plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Why?

Well, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., calls it an “insult” to the families of the victims that Muhammad and other defendants would stand trial in an American courtroom, given the rights that all criminal defendants get under the Constitution.

Attorney General Eric Holder said he is seeking the death penalty. Hmm. Do you think he’ll seat a jury that will sentence Muhammad to death if he is convicted of his crimes? The jurors will come from New York City, the site of the Twin Towers’ collapse, which killed nearly 3,000 people. Yeah, I think they’ll send this guy to his death, just like another federal jury did to another criminal defendant. Surely, you’ll recall Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who was executed six years after blowing up the Murrah Federal Building in April 1995.

The Muhammad trial will occur just blocks from the Twin Towers site. The decision to try him in the city where most of the victims died in the 9/11 attacks is the right one.

Childress native Lou Dobbs is headed for superstardom.

I cannot say how well David Swinford knows T. Boone Pickens, but they now both have something brand new in common.

This just popped into my e-mail inbox. It comes from a young friend of mine who lives in Hereford.

What is a Vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day and making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel. He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.
She – or he – is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang. He is the POW who went away one person and came back another – or didn’t come back AT ALL. He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat – but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.
He is the parade – riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand. He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.
He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep. He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket – palsied now and aggravatingly slow – who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.
He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being – a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.
So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.
Two little words that mean a lot, “THANK YOU.” Remember November 11th is Veterans Day.
“It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier,Who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.”

Father Denis Edward O’Brien, USMC

My friend sent this note as an expression of thanks for my military service to the country many years ago.

I only can say that we have come a long way — a very long way — from the days when we once scorned our men and women in uniform. I’m grateful that we’ve made this journey.

To all the vets who served, and to their family members who love them: Thank you for your service.

A letter came in the mailbag this morning. It comes from an Amarillo man who said this: “As our President Barack Obama declared in his speech that America is no longer a Christian nation …”

What speech? When did he declare such a thing?

I’ve been getting a good bit of mail lately from folks who keep repeating this alleged statement. I’ve gone back through the record and I cannot find where the president said anything of the kind.

And this takes me to the point of this note: the innuendo and outright lies being kicked around about the president of the United States.

I am struggling to keep my sanity in the wake of all this hate. We’ve heard it said from the so-called “birthers” that Obama wasn’t born in the United States, that he is a closet Muslim (which in a pre-9/11 world might not have mattered as much as it does in this post-9/11 world), that he is a Marxist and heaven knows what else. Do you remember when the sanctimonious wing of the conservative movement clobbered President Clinton over his messing around with the White House intern? Given that no one has discovered even a hint of impropriety in that vein regarding the current president, his right-wing foes have glommed onto made-up stuff dealing with his birth and his faith.

I can understand why many Americans are upset with the president. The deficit he and Congress are running up are giving me the heebie-jeebies. I’m concerned that the president at times appears too reluctant to speak harshly enough to those who threaten this nation.

But I am going nuts having to listen to those who lie, who put words in the president’s mouth and who accuse him of being things he is not.

OK. I exaggerate. I’m not approaching clinical insanity. At least I don’t think so.

Mac Thornberry may be in trouble.

President Obama today declared that flags flying on federal property will be lowered through Veterans Day. Gov. Perry on Thursday issued a flag-lowering declaration for state property through the weekend.