If someone scripted that, they need to be shot.COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?
PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.
Palin, her family and aides are determined to remind voters what they so liked about the governor in the first place.This is nonsense. Palin was being Palin. That's the problem. Of course this is the McCain people being McCain people--believe that media spin can somehow be transformed into reality. The problem isn't bad lighting. It isn't the wrong format. It isn't scripting. It's that the pick is disaster. No amount of repackaging can change that basic fact.
After the debate and talk radio hits, the plan is to find a way to let Palin be Palin, moving her away from the pre-fab talking points and letting the down-home daughter of Wasilla be herself.
"She wants to tell her story more, and people around her do, too," added the source. "This is a governor very much on her toes, very much fed up with inaccuracies and fictions about her own life and career."
UPDATE: Video of Sarah "the barracuda." Better, I guess.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Everything is the media's fault. Even when she answers a question from a voter. A voter. That's "gotcha journalism." Yep, has nothing to do with understanding your running mate's position. It's the media's fault she took a position in reponse to a question (posed by another guy in line for a cheesesteak) that was in opposition to her running mate. Yep. The media. It' not that she doesn't know what she's doing. It's the media.
The damage has already been done though, right? I suppose with the lowered expectations, she could come out and do well on Thursday,(though I doubt it)but the fact that she's not too bright is all too obvious. At least to all the people with a brain.
Palin did OK, but who was the freak in red next to her?
McCain-Palin - one for the price of two!
While this interview does contain complete sentences and thoughts, doesn't her clear lack of knowledge make her mocking convention speech seem all the more ridiculous?
In all the chaos of the last two weeks, has anyone taken a couple of steps back to think about how crazy it is that this woman is already the elected Governor of one of our 50 states?
It's not just that she is the worst VP choice of all time. There's still a 50% chance she never sets foot in the White House. But there's a 100% chance that she's already in charge of Alaska and still has the steadfast support of a huge number of voters, even after demonstrating as objectively and embarassingly as possible that she is totally incapable of holding even the office she already has.
This bizarre, media-fed culture war of our last two decades has taken us much further down a bad road than almost anyone in the US seems to be willing to recognize. Today's "conservatives", with all their phony sentimentality about how great things supposedly used to be, appear too blinded by their own self-riteousness to see the obvious: before all their bluster subjectivized (or blotted out altogether) the news, the Palin disaster could never have happened. In the days before Fox news, she would have been too much of a joke to be elected Governor. But in the era of Murdoch, our world is so turned on its head that she is nominated for Vice President precisely BECAUSE of her total objective irrelevance.
Did she just repeat her original position, then wait for McCain to act like jerk, and then repeat his jerky line that this was the voter's fault? And then she said we are keeping our plans to bomb other countries a secret from terrorists? Yes, she did speak in complete sentences and condescending tones, but I think that makes it worse. When she was speaking gibberish, you could chalk it up to nerves, or pressure, or mixing up talking points. When she speaks clearly, it makes me think that she means all the crazy stuff she is saying. And that is much, much worse.
"This is all about gotcha journalism," which I guess is right depending upon what your definition of "this" is:
This voter's question was all about gotcha journalism...
This interview is all about gotcha journalism...
This conspiracy of asking questions is all about gotcha journalism....
or could it possibly be....
This campaign's strategy is all about [claiming] it's all about gotcha journalism.
they don't even trust her to be on her own.
mccain is there obviously to baby sit her and draw her back in, like a kite being drawn back in, when she starts to drift away.
what a joke.
Is it me, or is Palin trying to look MORE like Tina Fey's impersonation of her? It's getting to the point I can't tell them apart.
And, actually, I though Tina Fey made her appear much more articulate in the SNL skit than Palin actually was in the interview. Maybe Palin is looking to Fey on how to act in front of the camera as herself.
Well, they've got the hand gestures under control. Can mastery of foreign policy be far behind?
Yeah, I guess her performance tonight is better. But what about when McCain isn't around? Tonight's performance with McCain holding Palin's hand doesn't reassure that she can take over the Presidency capably in the event of a catastrophe, but instead reinforces that she can't.
I can't believe the campaign had McCain sitting right next to her for a follow-up with Couric, drawing even more attention to the most infamous interview performance within recent memory! This seems like a huge blunder on the McCain campaign's part. Having him watch over her makes her look that much more weak, unqualified.
And the "gotcha journalism" response was a huge stretch. Slapping Couric in the face like that is no way to win over independent voters or curry favor with journalists.
Lab Partner said pretty much what I wanted to say: she looks a little presidential, as long as McCain is sitting next to her.
The McCain/Palin campaign signifies nothing but its own hollowness, its own cynicism, its own tired grasp at a reality that does not exist. The only external logic that can be used to make sense of the campaign is "Win At All Costs". Everything is subservient to that goal.
She is a fucking idiot. But THAT'S OK TOO.
How can McCain sit there and smile through this shit? Has he earned a free pass to wreak unlimited damage and embarassment on his country for the rest of his days? It is sad what a self-centered creep this guy has become.
Wow is the bar so low that using complete sentences to express idiotic thoughts is considered a success?
She screwed up and said the wrong thing. It wasn't exactly a trick question was it?
Yes, she did better tonight, but she's still talking about a whole lot of nothing. And McCain was clearly there to jump in and save her in a potentially tricky spot.
Also, McCain looks about as uncomfortable as humanly possible. They have this forced chemistry about them, like a couple trying to convince an immigration officer that they're really married.
Oh, and if you missed it, Zakaria eviscerated Palin today on Blitzer's show. He shows up at 3:30 in the clip.
After stepping in before Palin could say whether she was 'sorry' she had made the off-the-cuff remark, McCain had the nerve to say on camera that he would LET HER SPEAK FOR HERSELF.
No woman ever needs permission to speak for herself. EVER.
Prick.
I think McCain/Palin has officially "jumped the moose".
@Asian guy: I can't tell Palin and Fey apart, and Fey would probably be more articulate as a candidate--the latest version of Palin is kind of beyond caricature. (Or "mocking.")
I think this is, in theory, a good move from the McCain campaign. In the sense that it might work, and in the absence of a dire illness befalling a Palin child. Yes, the reason they kept her so sheltered is probably that she is so clueless, but now that the whole world has figured that out, "she isn't a total idiot; we were just overprotective" is a better narrative than the one they've got. Sure, they're trying to spin it into reality, but it may work--if she does far better than I expect, but within the realms of the feasible, she could at least get conservative opinion back to her side. Less "totally clueless disaster who will cause George Will to vote Obama" and more "unpolished, but with a refreshing directness."
Sure, they're trying to spin it into reality, but it may work--if she does far better than I expect, but within the realms of the feasible, she could at least get conservative opinion back to her side. Less "totally clueless disaster who will cause George Will to vote Obama" and more "unpolished, but with a refreshing directness."
If this were a relative time of peace and prosperity, I might agree. Moreover, I think there is a limit to how much any one topic can be spun. I think the most they can hope for at this point is that people simply tire of making fun of her...(but, I doubt it).
Am I the only one who thinks that the need to roll McCain out beside her is an automatic loss? For one thing, it undermines any attempt to make her look like she has anything to contribute to American government on her own. For another, it doesn't look like she has any chemistry with McCain whatsoever. McCain clearly doesn't know her well at all, and simply does not hate her like he hates many of his Republican colleagues in the Senate. On a sane planet, that would make her a bad fit as a VP choice.
Certainly a more coherent performance, but we're comparing to a historically low bar she established for herself. And its not like she said anything other than a couple of platitudes strung together and repeated as necessary. And frankly, having established herself as a total lightweight, it makes her 'run against the press' approach we saw here even more grating.
I agree with a commenter above-who is she to criticize Obama? You can dig up on youtube interview of Obama from 1995, and the guy was the same as he is now-thoughtful, well informed, and smart as a whip. She is a hack of the highest order, and the fact that our punditry is not echoing Zakaria's performance on CNN constantly is pathetic.
Palin's going to be more herself? Great. I hope Biden has a bunch of rebuttals prepared about witchcraft, making gay people straight, Alaskan separatism, and the contents of Bircher newsletters.
From The Daily Dish
Palin Knows Of No Other Court Cases Except Roe
29 Sep 2008 06:39 pm
Yes, it can get worse:
There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.
Unbelievable.
I'll say it again.
NOBODY BLACK who was this incompetent and fucking stupid would even hear their name called. This isn't funny. We've got the MSM going along that this idiot is remotely qualified.
McCain/Palin have a ceiling of 42%-44%. She's a negative with independents in leaning-GOP states.
At this point, she's comic relief.
I'm getting angry at McCain with his treatment of this woman. Although she may not mind, because this role is familiar like with her husband being the "real" governor of Alaska.
A couple things:
1) I feel like the punditry has turned on her over the last week, at least MSNBC (unsurprising) and CNN (somewhat surprising).
2) I think the expectations are so low for the debate that she's bound to outperform expectations. I don't think it will be enough to really change the polls at all, but I expect better than the Couric debacle. It certainly couldn't be any worse.
That McCain/Palin interview is unreal. I'm a high school teacher and McCain right there is exactly like every asshole parent I've ever had come to a meeting to explain that their kid's screw-up is actually: my fault, the school's fault, some other kid's fault, or the fault anyone else other than their precious offspring.
Creepy.
Palin Knows Of No Other Court Cases Except Roe
You've got to be kidding me, how is she supposed to uphold the Constitution and our laws without at least a passing familiarity of famous court cases? The real question is what she knows about the Constitution itself and the Bill of Rights. I took one Con law class in high school and while back and I can still remember some of the bigger cases. Even if not all of their names, I do know the basics of what was decided. We even have a set of rights made famous by TV that is named after a court case (Miranda).
Bush v. Gore???? Wow. As DMX would say, you can't be serious!
Palin made this same claim regarding her stance on Pakistan in the Charlie Gibson interview.
I wish Couric would have mentioned that. It would have immediately debunked McCain's assertion that this was another example of the "gotcha" media.
Will McCain get his own podium on Thursday night?
McCain and his campaign have become the "Vaudeville Villains".
Props for the MF Doom lyrics.
I think she did sound bad saying programmed lines or trying to fake her way.
McCain's going to lose anyway so I would like to see her bust loose a bit. If she's going to politically die she might as well die having fun. Let her say the VP isn't that important anyway and she's mostly in it to promote Alaskan tourism. That if she ever becomes President she'll just let the Cabinet handle most of that foreigny stuff. That she'll devote herself to ruining every Republican who voted against the bailout and thus made McCain look stupid. That every question can be answered by "here's who I'll fire" or "This is what luxury item I'd sale." Then bust out with her flute and play some Moody Blues.
Yeah it'd tank, but like I said she might have fun doing that and so would we.
Here's what I don't get.
Can the McCain campaign really, truly be this stupid?
This is a ready-made skit for Saturday Night Live.
Did no one even consider this possibility?
Monumental, one-for-the-history-books stupidity.
These morons are BEGGING to be mocked.
I just think that's freakin' weird.
I now see why most law officials have done exactly what the name calls for, studied law.... you can't effectively run any part of this country w/o knowing what it was built on, & what issues are affecting it now.
She sounds more ignorant w/ each comment.
They said Obama was green when he first started campaigning, but never did he sound like a complete idiot.
On the one hand, I just hope that Palin begins weeping at the debate, and we can all be put out of our misery.
On the other hand, I can't look away. Part of me is sinfully enjoying what is easily the most embarrassing political farce I've ever witnessed.
So the "Russians are coming"--they're going to invade Alaska?
I might actually stay up & watch it to see the exact point when smoke starts coming from her ears like a bedazzled fembot.
She was too scripted. The problem was that someone mixed up the Sarah Palin script with an old Michael Palin script from Monty Python.