by Jonathan Singer, Thu Sep 11, 2008 at 06:13:04 PM EDT
We're starting to see just why the McCain campaign has been working so hard to shield Sarah Palin from the media...
Update [2008-9-11 23:1:12 by Todd Beeton]:Andrea Mitchell on Sarah Palin: "On the nuts and bolts of foreign policy, not ready for prime time."
Tags: bush doctrine, Sarah Palin, White House 2008 (all tags)
Oh but wait for it, the media will say she was "strong, dignified, classy, sassy, and super cool".
what matters aren't the actual words that she used, which I don't have a problem with at all; her dear-in-the-headlight's look is what most will take from it. Why else did the commentators on cnn and fox try to explain what occurred here? Even if she did know what Gibson was talking about, she gave off the sense that she had no idea. Let's put it this way, if she had this minute back, Palin would probably opt for a do-over.
you are probably right, but my anger toward her as a candidate is pretty irrational atm.
an "unfavorable" opinion of her whereas I have a "very unfavorable" opinion of McCain if Rasmussen polled me using and asked the favorability question. With that said, the Obama folks have to be pleased with the interview today; this segment drops her interview down a grade at least though I suppose she could recover in subsequent interview parts.
Her answer on Russia-Georgia isn't too different from the policy that Obama and Biden have proposed; Sam Nunn seems to be only one not escalating the rhetoric against Russia, though I agree that there are degrees of rhetoric and Palin, McCain, and yes, even Biden have crossed the line in my opinion as to the language they are using with respect to the Russia-Georgia conflict.
This will sound crazy from me, but my "unfavorable" opinion stems from the primary battle with Hillary. I am a die hard Obama supporter who now has an intense respect and admiration for Senator Clinton. Palin is the opposite of everything I saw in Clinton, and the absolute cynisism in her pick has made me pretty irrational.
But it has caused me to volunteer more and donate more, so it hasn't been all negative.
I am watching Palin right now, and I just can't believe this.
She is like a robot, she is so phony. She doesn't know anything about Bush's foreign policy.. (which is appalling - for a VP candidate..)
And she sounds like she is reading from a script.
Hillary Clinton has the sharpest mind in a debate of anyone I've seen in this election cycle. I was never wowed by Hillary's "experience" argument. I was always wowed by Hillary's ability to think on her feet. She's a far tougher adversary than McCain, though likely more scrupulous. We'll see McCain get less and less scrupulous the later this goes and the tighter it gets.
It's quite obvious that she was over her head. But how does the Obama campaign press this?
I think the above exchange is exactly where you go: Sarah Palin doesn't even know what America's fundamental national security is. How can she be expected to lead it?
By saying she appeared to be in over her head, of course.
This is a situation that I think we can let the media do with as they will. You don't need to say anything, just let people see it and realize what they are in store for if she ever assumes the Presidency.
It's better to focus on building a narrative that focus' on McCain.
I really liked a comment either here or on openleft that was asking for Obama to keep using the lipstick phrase just to see if he could keep getting the same reaction from the McCain camp. This of course would actually turn against them even more forcefully, because they would start to look like the overly-sensitive whiners. What a shock that would be!
Won't work. If your average American doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is, which they don't, they won't care if she doesn't either.
After all, being ignorant makes her more "like us." People can relate to that, 'member? Having beers and throwing cookouts and ridiculing knowledge is the American way.
The best way to handle this, IMHO, is:
"John McCain didn't do right by Sarah Palin. When you pick someone for a national campaign, you have to make sure they're ready for what they will face. By putting so little thought into his Vice Presidential pick, John McCain set Governor Palin up for failure."
Or words to that effect. Point out that it was his responsibility (his campaign's, but he's nominally in charge) to prep her and make sure she didn't get surprised by some really obvious and really predictable questions and look like an amateur. In other words, he let her down.
I suppose... But how about this
What Obama needs to do - get his interview with O'Reilly and Palin's interview, shown side by side.
Right now, do nothing. As sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, the Republicans will launch their usual, "pity me, the press is being unfair" bullshit. Wait till they do. At that point sidestep the ruckus, and instead give a speech about a random topic such as being willing to work with republicans, using the interview with O'Reilly as Exhibit A. Get that interview out to there. Yes the republicans will say, bullshit and who really cares what douche bag O'Reilly says.
The point will be clear, and it will be hard to miss that Obama can take the heat. And just for those folks that can't put two and two together, you have surrogates spell it out.
The so called "Bush doctrine" is basically now "Do unto others before they do unto us"
She didn't know that, even though its one of the most important differences between Bush administration and previous post WWII US policy.. (which is called "No first use" short for "No first use of nuclear weapons"
Right after being appointed to office by the Supreme Court after losing the popular vote, Bush abandoned the "no first use of nuclear weapons" policy that has been sworn to by almost all of the other nuclear weapons..
That alone is extremely distressing.. when combined with Palin's gung ho attitude on Pakistan, (one of the few OTHER countries that also has not embraced no first use) well..
She is too inexperienced.
IMO, she is beng picked because she is TV-pretty and loyal. And because she is female. NOT because she is qualified. She CLEARLY is not qualified.
your average american is not running for vp. all one has to say to this is this is something the vp should know
How about, silly girl is going to quickly get us into a 'holy war' with the Muslim world if she has her druthers.
Damm, she's downright scary with a finger a heartbeat away from the Nuclear option.
we don't need to go where you are going to make the point that as a vp she's not ready. why call her a girl? what's the point of being sexist when she fails on her own merits as w oman seeking the second highest office in the land? i am not being pc byt eh way- just not sure what hte point of using language that will get people riled up when the actual situation speaks for himself with our repeating it.
You're right that most Americans won't know either. It's that she tried to fake it so obviously. That dreadful pause, followed by my favorite lines spoken by a politician in awhile: "In what respect, Charlie?" A kid trying to fake her way past a tough question on an exam.
I honestly don't think I've ever seen a journalist anywhere near as critical or unfriendly to Obama as Gibson is being to Palin.
I guess you didn't see O'Reilly the last three nights?
I doubt too many people would come away from that interview segment thinking Gibson was being an ass; the guy came off as pretty civil to me perhaps a little too civil because he shouldn't have let her get off the hook with the Bush Doctrine question.
in none of the debates?
or on O'Reilly?
I've seen Meredith Viera be harsher than this. Hell, I've seen Matt Lauer be harsher.
This was extreme softball.
The unfriendly disposition of the interviewer towards the interviewee is palpably obvious. Obama is coddled by "neutral" journalists, and no, I don't consider Bill O to qualify under that label.
Do you want Gibson to dumb down the questions? The woman basically threatened war with Russia and didn't know what the Bush Doctrine is.
I predict that the McCain campaign will attempt to restrict her access to the media even more.
I thought Gibson's questions were pretty softball. Tell me it's not fair to ask if the Republican VP candidate believes in Bush's doctrine of preemptive war. The fact she didn't know about it isn't his fault.
Defend away BPK80, but the whole world now should know that McCain cares more about becoming President than about the security of our country. Palin is all about politics, and nothing about being qualified to be President.
Not dumbed down questions. Maybe a less obvious agenda to tarnish her.
"blizzard of words."
And hostile cold stares at her intermittent attempts to lighten the mood. It's clear the environment was designed to make her uncomfortable. I guess to an extent it worked.
No seriously, you seem to be upset that a journalist didn't make someone who wants to be a heartbeat away from the presidency comfortable.
I guess you expect the same the deference from Putin when she declares war on him? Again, I reiterate, full of shit.
She's not going to have to explain or justify herself to any world leader she declares war on.
Really I'm not that upset. I had a good day. I think the blatant coldness of Gibson plays well into the theme that the media coddles Obama while they attempt in vain to destroy Palin. It's clear he was going out of his way to attempt embarrassing her. Her discomfort may give glee to the academic far left who constantly mine others for flaws to vindicate their own human failings, but it won't resonate the way an Obama supporter would hope for with the electorate at large. Obama's precipitous decline in the polls will continue.
Hmm... you must have missed the debate where Gibson spend an hour smearing Obama on Rev. Wright and flag pins...
Maybe he just hates everybody... but, i know.. Sarah Palin is Joan of Arc and must be protected 'cos... well, I don't know why...
It's clear the environment was designed to make her uncomfortable.
They were in her office. The interview was on her terms. She got to stretch it out over multiple sessions and she knew what the topics would be in advance for each session. Moreover, by stretching it out over multiple sessions she had leverage to keep Gibson from questioning too aggressively.
Face it. The whole thing was set up to her advantage and she underperformed by any objective standard.
Oooh, the "unfriendly disposition".
Could you be more demeaning? She's may be going up against Putin and Ahmadinejad, I daresay she should be able to get past unfriendliness.
I mean really, is McCain going to say that Charlie Gibson wasn't "deferential" enough for Sarah Palin?
The American people are going to watch these clips and see a woman over her head. They are going to want to hear a lot more. Is McCain going to lock her up from now to the debates? Is this the last unscripted appearance for Sarah Palin?
Wow. I'm going to guess you missed the last few debates, then, and in particular that you missed the ABC debate in which Gibson went after Obama hard, with questions that were more critical and unfriendly and also far more trivial to the real issues. Gibson treated Palin much more nicely than he treated Obama.
I think you're projecting -- Palin came off as uncomfortable and covered it with aggression and the Bush-style certainty of her convictions. It's hard to appear uncritical or friendly when your interviewee is snapping off responses in a very cold tone. Gibson could've appeared to mirror the way she was responding. But he was much nicer to her than he was to Obama.
caught so flat-footed. I suspect Gibson knew how coached she was, and asked a narrow question that broad tutelage wouldn't cover.
AP headline was "Palin struggles with FP".
To be fair, for days she has probably had people jumping our of shadows screaming "Define the major points of the Georgian action!!!". It was a game effort, but it certainly wasn't VP-level.
She literally had no idea what the Bush Doctrine is, let alone how she feels about it. Kinda scary, actually.
Answer The Fucking QUESTION!!!!
How can ANYONE think she is ready for the world stage! She is PATHETIC!
If this country elects mccain and his big decision palin, then the people who voted for them and this country will be PATHETIC!
We are already the joke of a nation to the world, who only gets respect because we are tougher. If mccain and his big decision palin are elected... we will be the laughing stock of the world!
Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?
"I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is... rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell-bent on destroying our nation..."
EPIC FAIL.
Enough of this shit...Obama has already said he would follow the Bush doctrine...watch.
We're not arguing whether the Bush Doctrine is right or wrong.
We're talking about whether a candidate for vice president HAS EVER HEARD OF IT.
I guess that takes the third term of Bush argument away then.
I guess you're right.
"I'm not like Bush at all. I'M EVEN DUMBER."
I think this is really the stealth message we want to be projecting, and want Obama's campaign to be projecting. It's bad enough that McCain is largely Bush's third term with so many poor policies being continued. But when McCain does decide to break with Bush, it's so that he can do something even worse.
A long while back there was a flap because Obama said that McCain would make a better President than Bush. At the time a lot of people -- myself included -- defended the remark on the ground that it's very difficult to be a worse President than Bush.
At this point, I have to disagree with my candidate and flip-flop on this issue. Based on the last month of this campaign and the decisions McCain has made, I truly think he'd make a worse President than George W. Bush. Sorry, Barack, on this one you got it wrong.
when they didn't. Had Palin been honest, she'd have said, "never heard of it," or something more aw shucks mainstream America. But she tried to fake her way through the question, and it came across as ludicrous and dishonest. . .
She is an absolute disgrace. How dare she accept McCain's crazy desperate invitation. Pathetic and feeble, yet aggressive, ruthless, and dangerously ambitious.
Unfortunately the 50% of the population who are brain dead don't care if she knows nothing about anything.
She was smart. Imagine how it would play out if she didn't dodge and force him to be very specific: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine, "Yes I do agree with the Bush doctrine because...."
That would play right into the McCain/Palin = Bush/Cheney line of attack. Notice she doesn't ever completely agree with him. She says, Tell me exactly what you mean he says what do YOU think it means she says his world view and continues to describe what she thinks of his world view and how he did his best but he was flawed.
Gibson then defines the Bush Doctrine as he sees fit and she goes into a standard answer, "imminent threat, actionable intelligence etc."
He then, quite glibly says, is that a yes or a no and she basically said, "All options must remain on the table"
She is clearly not a foreign policy giant but her ability to control the conversation and take it where she wants is actually fairly impressive
I actually don't think the answer is a fail (The policy maybe) but not the answer
that's the problem for Palin; it's the idea that many people may get from watching the video that she didn't know what Gibson meant by the Bush Doctrine. Her actual answer is pretty decent in my opinion. However, that she had to ask Gibson two questions to get a clarification suggests to some that she lacked any understanding of the Bush Doctrine.
You could be right, we'll have to see how this segment plays. Imagine if someone asked what do you think of judicial review, and you asked "in what respect."
Wow.. someone that writes diaries like "Obama Calls Himself a Muslim" and consistently builds up Palin on various subjects, I'm shocked that you would think that she did well in this interview. Absolutely shocked I say!
Obama did call himself a Muslim and there was video. I found it to be interesting and if you actually read what I wrote you would see that I wasn't slimming him.
Secondly, I like Palin what can I say. Don't agree with her on everything but do I agree with anyone on everything?
Finally, I said it's another view not necessarily my view. I personally don't think she knew what the Bush Doctrine was but also don't think it's a big deal. (certainly not as big a deal as it is being made out to be here). She showed political cleverness by the way she answered it and handled the situation (That was the point)
You think she knew what it was, and didn't want to agree with it? If that were the case, he wouldn't have had to explain it.
Dodging it would be "under what circumstances, Charlie? context is important". What she did was try to gut it out, which might have been more successful without the blizzard (nice one) of tangential talking points.
Most people seeing that will agree, what she was thinking was "The WHAT?".
You would never ever hear a journalist dare invoke the term "blizzard" with regard to Obama's absolutely contradictory & elusive explanations of Wright & Cling-Gate. "Oh you meant it as a compliment to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania? Of course you did!"
you do realize Obama has been getting pounded in the media for over a month now right? Would you prefer they lead their nightly news segments like this:
Anchor: Tonight we discuss how many babies Senator Obama plans to kill during his first year in office and later we will analyze Senator Obama's economic plan with our independent analysts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
I thought Moran tooled Obama in Iraq and hit him pretty hard with the surge questions. That was a pretty tough interview wasn't it?!?
Obama did better against Couric even though she tried to nail him with the surge stuff as well. Reporters get tough with everybody and just in case you haven't noticed, Obama is the only one talking to the media these days; McCain is an even bigger offender than Palin as he hasn't given a press conference or actual national press interview in almost a month and he's the presidential candidate!
No I wouldn't; those are hyperbolic. I would have liked to see the same type of scrutiny applied to Obama's incessant word blizzards as Sarah received however. It would inspire more than the smiles and nods and demeanors of "Oh I guess he answered the question and he's so wonderful."
Journalists rarely get such a turkey-shoot moment, and he couldn't help himself.
Leading up to that, however - total deference.
There was nothing to explain away in "cling" BTW, I live in PA and he was absolutely right. That's a subjective argument, a values issue, not an objective one. This was objective FAIL.
I live in Pennsylvania as well, and regardless of what you perceive to be a sociological truth, it's still inane to demean an entire demographic that one is trying to court. "Vote for me because you suck." Is that the best approach? There are some pretty ugly truths about urban voters we don't bring up without discretion. Ditto for suburbans.
Re: Gibson; the indicators of a hostile interview go beyond words as well. She smiles and makes a light hearted comment; he responds with a cold stare. His blizzard jab that snuck out only underscores his agenda to tarnish her. It wasn't Palin's best performance. It looked more like an interrogation than an interview. It fits in handily with McCain's media is "trying to destroy her like wolves because Obama is dropping in the polls" theme.
For Christ's sake, she's running for VICE PRESIDENT!!!! If she can't handle an unfriendly reporter, how in the FUCK is she going to manage a war room? It's fucking ridiculous that you think she should be given slack on being willfully ignorant because she's a woman.
It wasn't demeaning a demographic. It was description of voting patterns. But I grant that it was a "gaffe" in the classic sense. It just wasn't complicated or convoluted.
Re: Gibson, at some point interpretations of nonverbal behavior become wildly subjective. I'm not going to try and convince you you didn't see what you did, but I saw it completely differently. I saw her as being combative to cover her lapse, which pissed him off.
It's subjective though, I can't say my version is more accurate than yours. I CAN say, that is really sort of irrelevant to an interview at this high level.
I don't think there's much more to discuss if you think that trivializing & essentializing small town voters as "bitter" economic failures who "cling to guns and religion and antipathy towards people who aren't like them... as a way to explain their frustrations" is a neutral description, having no disparaging or pejorative connotation whatsoever.
One of my favorite analogies, is "you're extremely fat! Ooooh that's not meant as an insult I'm just stating an objective fact, descriptively."
"It's subjective though, I can't say my version is more accurate than yours."
I agree with that statement to an extent. Some truths are empirical and others are colored by one's own lenses, so to speak.
Upthread, you protested someone putting words in your mouth. Now you're doing it.
The point was not that they are economic failures, it's that economics has failed them so often that their voting patterns fall into "guns, god and gays". They no longer vote on economic self-interest. You either think that is inaccurate, or unspeakable. I would disagree with both views.
I agreed it was a gaffe because it wouldn't play well, not because it was an inherently disparaging remark. I think it is a deeply empathic perspective. That being said, I get you dislike the guy, and you see it as awful.
No actually, I see that the viewpoint you are sharing is empathetic. The phrasing of it clearly was not. It belittled and trivialized people. Terminology reveals a lot. "cling" is disparaging.
I don't think the viewpoint itself is unspeakable at all. I think it was not spoken well at all.
"She had been struggling with insomnia, thyroid problems, and clinical depression following the loss of her daughter and consequently gained weight in the last year."
v.
"Yeah, she got really obese."
Maybe you understand the point I'm making? Maybe not. Cheers regardless,
-B
You know very well it wasn't an insult. It was an explanation as to voting motivations in response to a question about why he wasn't gaining traction. About two things he said in an interview prior to the primaries cause a failure on the part of Democrats to connect with rural voters. He wasn't insulting them, he was defending them. It was just typical media and opposing candidate spin that made it into an insult. I am certain you know this and it is just your bitterness and bias that causes you to bring it up like this.
There are places where this line of bullshit is encouraged, so why are you here?
Has the dementia gotten so thick in here that people are actually peddling and believing the viewpoint that Barack Obama's "bitter/cling" comments were favorable attributions to small town Pennsylvanians?
I thought that was a settled issue. Obama got caught "talkin' trash" on PA voters in San Fran because he was the one bitter and frustrated with his inability to connect here statewide (both then and now). The left will never rectify this aloof condescension problem if it can't even recognize it.
Well, Obama obviously "clings" to religion as well, so it's pretty clear that he wasn't trying to disparage every Christian in PA. He is not a hunter, and doesn't understand it (I don't really either, and I live here too), and that was a mistake. He was implying (poorly) that many rural voters cling to tradition when other parts of their life aren't going well. There isn't anything inherently wrong with tradition, but tradition for tradition's sake is a bad thing.
I'd love to hear one of those "contradictions" and "elusive explanations". In no case do I recall any answer being given contradicting any other answer, unless you look at it upside down and sideways and squint realllly hard -- then you could perhaps prove that there was a contradiction, in what Obama might possibly have meant, if you re-interpret most of his words.
Sorta similar to what a few people did when they heard him saying something that, in plain English, was very graceful to Ferraro during the Philadelphia speech, or the way he said that "typical white people" were not racists or bigots. Some people managed the mental gymnastics to turn one of those into a slam of Ferraro and a slam of white people.
Maybe you know of some contradictions I don't. It's possible that I missed something during those various flaps.
"I could no more disown my pastor..."
until
"[and the thing that disturbed me most was that I said I was just doing it as a politician!]"
Of course that is what bothered Obama most, not the repetition of incendiary remarks themselves. I guess many people have little experience with self-obsessed improvisers in real life, since he's so handily escaped the radar.
I'll give you she's slimy enough to try every trick in the book to dodge the question, but she didn't have a clue, and Gibson had to explain it to her. If she had known, she could have given her same answer to Gibson's first attempt. The prime foreign policy contribution of the Bush administration, and she didn't know anything about it.
Gibson isn't entirely correct which is another reason she was wise not to assume what he meant. The so called Bush doctrine encompass treating terrorist hosting nations as terrorist (which was the original "Bush Doctrine"). It was post Iraq invasion that the preemptive war aspect was attributed to him. Unilateralism is also an aspect of the "Bush Doctrine" and the spread of Democracy through military means as well; you're a smart guy i'm sure you already knew that.
Yes, his answer was incomplete. But hers was a zero. She knew absolutely nothing about the Bush Doctrine. And when told of it, she proceeded to defend the pre-Bush Doctrine of imminent threats and not pre-emptive war.
Yes -- this is the point, for me. All the attempts to explain it away as "the Bush Doctrine can mean multiple things" or "it was just clever diversion" miss two core points:
1) She clearly had no idea that there was anything referred to as the Bush Doctrine and figured any answer relating to something Bush believed would count, and
2) When she finally gave an answer that reflected on Gibson's definition, which while incomplete is a valid way to look at the Bush Doctrine, or part of it, the answer reflected a fundamental contradiction of the Bush Doctrine -- exactly the position the Bush Doctrine starts from and rejects
I know that's too subtle for most TV viewers who just listen and say "wow, she's clueless" or "she did ok with that". But it's fundamentally a strike-out. It's as absolutely wrong as her comments on Freddie and Fannie. She just plain doesn't know what she's talking about, once she's out of her comfort zone, and she's not yet well versed enough in how to evade and deflect questions like that to make it seem like she does know what she's talking about.
The problem is that "imminent threats" is traditional war policy, NOT the Bush Doctrine. Remember all those Iraq war apologists insisting that Bush never said Iraq posed an "imminent" threat? It was because Iraq was unjustifiable according to traditional war theory.
Yet, when told that Bush Doctrine means "anticipatory self-defense" and "pre-emptive strikes" she showed that she doesn't even know what THOSE concepts mean.
In many ways, then, the most damning part of the interview is AFTER she's told what the Bush Doctrine is.
Again, why would you assume McCain/Palin agree with Bush's national security policy? McCain is very strongly grounded in traditional US security policy. I would expect him to fall into more of a Colin Powell mode than an expansionist neo-con mode. Palin answered accordingly.
Because McCain has been advocating a preemptive, neoconservative platform. Where have YOU been?
No, that's not an explanation either.
The question was: do you agree with the Bush Doctrine.
The answer is yes, or no, or partly and here's why, or here's what I think about it.
The answer is NOT: yes, I agree with the Bush Doctrine, which is something that's completely NOT the Bush Doctrine.
Rejecting the Bush Doctrine is a perfectly fine answer, and might've been politically astute. But she was trying to say she agreed with it, while in fact saying something that's nearly the opposite.
So the interview will help affirm the far left academic view that Palin is uneducated trash while shockingly increasing her likability ratings with the electorate at large. Obama continues to decline precariously in national and battleground state polls and continues to struggle meeting financial goals, having failed to express any sincere regard, empathy, or recognition for Hillary, her supporters, and her donors.
It's cute and everything that a lot of money was squandered in North Dakota, Alaska, North Carolina, Georgia, and Montana (states where he now trails by approx 20%) in a cavalier display of hubris but maybe it's time to lose the arrogance and get real.
I think that she did the best she could under the circumstances, but that's not good enough for me. Whether that's good enough for the American voters, we'll see.
How is it possible that this woman has re-started the election. But for her, McCain was done. Now he has a genuine chance. And if he wins, he knows that she will have to play an important part in his administration.
What has America become? How did we sink so low?
"ditzy" as Sarah Palin. She is definitely a person who got by on her looks throughout her life, as she knows zip about the issues, nor can she even dodge a question. She better not win the VPcy.
it was ignorant, and her facial expression was poorly managed. Fault McCain for putting her in the VP slot. However, once she had the definition, her answer was quite intelligent.
I am shocked that she's such a bad bullshitter. I thought that came with being a high-level pol.
...to eke out a bachelor's in communications.
I don't think she made it through brain power.
I really don't like using the word "ditzy" or anything of its ilk to describe her. For one thing, she's not stupid. She can talk and talk well, and there are clearly thing she does understand pretty well. She's poorly versed in national issues and she has poor skills at communicating at the level a national politician should communicate, particularly in interview situations.
That said: ditzy can only hurt us. Every time she manages a passable answer, people can say -- see, the mean nasty bloggers, they call her ditzy, and look, she knows stuffs. They're so sexist!
Calling her unprepared is fine. Not ready, fine. Not deep enough on the issues, fine. Lacking knowledge. Etc.
But let's keep clear of ditzy, or anything else with sexist connotations.
Guys and girls...
90% of the public doesn't think like us bloggers. Bush was COMPLETELY over his head in the debates against Gore and Kerry. Then he was voted in as president.
I want want the president (and V.P.) to be much more intelligent and confident than I am.
However, the general public (in the U.S.) is intimidated by this. Intelligence scares them, or perhaps makes them jealous.
They'll vote in someone like Bush and Palin because they're "just like them"...and it makes them feel better about themselves.
Sad, but true. Palin's cluelessness about many important issues will not affect McCain's polling figures. If anything, the public make find it endearing.
- Matt
Palin fails foreign policy interview. And they're not stupid enough to not realize that if their new darling never gets to talk to the press again, it's because McCain is afraid to let her.
I find it amusing that the press openly talks about her "training" this week for the "big first interview."
Doesn't this already spell inexperience to the public?
Again, not sure people think like we do.
I have heard many (middle class) women here in Cleveland talk about Palin casually.
"She's a mother like me...I like that"
"She has kids and will understand what it's like"
"Who cares if she changed her mind on the bridge? Doesn't a woman how a right to change her mind?"
"I don't know, I just like her. She's like a sister or something."
No policy comments folks. People vote on this stuff.
- Matt
It reminds me of an African American taxi driver who said she was voting for "the black guy" during the PA Primary. She didn't know what his name was but she knew she was voting for him on account of his skin color.
Please don't fool yourself into thinking identity politics only permeates the GOP voter base.
You know, above, where you didn't like having words put into your mouth? Other people don't like it either. The commenter obviously was commenting on the subject of not relating to identity politics. Yeah, they're going to play a large part in this election, gender and race. I know your main function on this blog is to yell "look at me, I'm OBSTINATE," but you really can and should do better than that. I'm out of here.
""look at me, I'm OBSTINATE."
These are some of the most flavorful words I have been given today. I don't have a designated "function" here. I have a fondness for MyDD, it having been the only place for real non-echo chamber discussion during the primary. I don't visit very often anymore though and haven't written a full diary in months. I have a viewpoint that is not the majority view so I am routinely trashed for sharing it and occasionally I'll defend it. I realize dissent is intolerable to many supporters of the nominee, but for the rest of us, it's an integral part of American life.
Anyway, the comment maker was explaining why certain personal attributions of the candidate determine the voting preference rather than the "super high functioning rationality that would lead any remotely intelligent person to love Barack Obama!" If you don't understand how my response balances that, perhaps en evolution of your critical thinking skills is in order.
Did you expect me to tell you to f-off? Thing is, I DO have critical thinking skills. Check it out, I'll apply them: You see everything through a frame of hurt because the Democrats in your view destroyed your icon (as seen in another diary.) I read Lakoff's book, several times. I understand identity politics, and why people vote against their interests. I know identity politics wins elections.
Look, I've been reading this site for 6 months, and, since the primaries have ended, every comment, including your signature, just is designed to remind everyone how upset you are, and anything possibly positive about Obama is competely wiped out by some negative. I get it. Everyone on the site gets it. You don't like Obama. You'll never vote Obama. I just find the fact that, in an anonymous forum, you make that the center of your persona, puzzling. I ask this genuinely: don't you have something positive to contribute?
My mom was raised in a middle class family (her father was a conductor on the Soo line).
Tonight was the first time she got really pissed about Palin. She was insulted that McCain would put somebody so clearly unqualified up for the VPship, and now she's scared that she might win.
The general public, for all we pretend they are shambling beasts, do know that their mechanic needs special knowledge. They know their Dentist should know things they don't. They expect the McDonald's clerk to know how to work the machine.
Expertise is understood to be necessary.
Many "regular" folk will see this and think "Wow, he had to explain it?". The look on her face, if nothing else, speaks louder than the wonkish term itself.
I don't think it's playing to moderates this time like it did in 2004. The approval rating numbers out of Ras are very eye-opening. 35% approve/61% disapprove among moderates? Before this interview? I don't think it's going to work for her.
And I think there's a real reason why, that's not sexist. It's the combination of overly-thin resume (even honest right-wingers said she makes Obama like an elder statesman) and lack of any national exposure. Right or wrong (and I'd argue it was wrong) people felt like they knew Bush belonged as a candidate for President. He'd been governor of the second-largest state, after all. Had national exposure. Knew a bunch of politicians. Had met some foreign heads of state. So once they knew he was marginally "qualified", they could evaluate him on the beer standard.
For a lot of moderates I don't think Palin meets the threshold; until she does (and the bar goes up every day) the beer standard doesn't apply.
Wow...she's not so good when the words aren't pre-written for her. I've never heard such non-answers nor seen such inept stalling.
Oh please. You never saw Obama speak off teleprompter?
Watch out.. you've riled up the PUMA idiots.
Maybe if we are lucky they will go back to No Quarter or Redstate, but I wouldn't hold my breath. These idiots are nothing if not persistent.. oh and did i mention liars..
Big.
Fat.
Liars.
I'm not fat and I don't lie. I almost never read RedState. Deal with it.
If you are one of the ones I described above (PUMA) you are most certainly a liar, or self-deluded (see divorced from reality) to the point you can't tell you are lying to yourself (and everyone else).
I recommend that you seek therapy and leave this community alone. Your input is not necessary.
She also says "nookyalur" rather than "nuclear." Kind of reminds you of a certain asshole who's been president for eight years.
If I'm Obama, what I'm thinking is this... "McCain had dozens of qualified people to chose from, and he picked the person that most resembles our current occupant in the White House. As they say, 'Fool me once...'".
Her one task was to get through this interview without blundering. The bar is set so low for her to begin with, yet she tripped over it anyway.
I'm not sure what interview you were watching there, Jonathan. It wasn't the same one I watched.
First, do no harm. Beyond that, she exceeded expectations of McCain camp.
The netroots and other liberals need to stop this meme about Palin. It isn't helping Democrats and it isn't helping Obama. It's headed for backfire territory, just as the idiotic rumor about her son, Trig, being Bristol's son has.
For most Americans who don't follow every breath of politics, she did what was expected and MORE. She's articulate, extremely intelligent and a very quick study.
But if you and others continue to feel inclined to push false memes and false negatives in order to elevate Obama and the Democrats, it seriously undermines him and gives McCain greater ammunition about liberal bias.
Don't underestimate Palin. It will be deadly.
Yeah, that's what I figured... The public LOVED that Bush was clueless... I'm sure they'll find her incompetence captivating as well... <sigh>
I am not as impressed with Sarah Palin as you are-- I find her to be incredibly shallow, uninformed on the issues and little more than a living, breathing talking point machine. I'm not saying she isn't someone we need to be concerned about, but I don't agree when you call her "extremely intelligent." She's a standard-issue Rovian wingnut whose only calling card is that she's not wrapped in the usual "old pasty white guy" package. They have that guy at the top of the ticket, so their bases are covered there too.
If she can understand the 99% of issues that are completely different than in Alaska in a few weeks, she deserves to be President. But she doesn't understand, she memorized. If your bar is set that low, I feel sorry for you.
I don't give a fuck about "helping" Obama with my comments on a blog. That's his job, and I don't have any impact on it whatsoever. Sarah Palin is not informed enough to be President. In four years time, sure, she would have been deadly. But this year? She's NOT READY. And we absolutely need to keep trumpeing that.
Sarah Palin is not running for president. Please cut the insinuations that McCain will die in office. That's base and heartless. We don't wish for Obama to be assassinated, so please afford the same respect to McCain's life.
Politico found that the actuarial tables give a man of 72 1:3 odds of not reaching 80. That's a generic guy, not taking into account McCain's history of cancer, NOT taking into account the immeasurable stress that the Oval Office puts on its resident. He has 1:7 odds of reaching 76. His mother is still going in her 90s, yes. His father died at 70.
This is not idle speculation. And it doesn't even include the possibility of McCain simply being too sick to govern, only the chances of him dying. I know it's ghoulish, but so is the possibility of Palin starting a "nucular" war.
There's a little bit of a difference between stating an opinion about a speech, and making shit up about whose baby it is that she said she gave birth to. It is also not a mime, it's a genuine opinion. Apparently, not one you can stand to read.
Most rational people will concede not being familiar with the Bush Doctrine isn't likely to harm the McCain ticket, but I'd like to know what interview you were watching. Nobody was expecting her to implode during this interview: it was by its nature a fairly soft one. Unfortunately it didn't really give us any valuable insights into who Sarah Palin is or what sort of executive leadership she would give us. At best, she was treading water.
I'm tempted to guess you've read the transcripts and haven't seen the actual video. Having first read the transcripts myself, I thought she did pretty well... but watching it on video; the body language, her vocal inflections... the visuals seemed to shave off a lot of the confidence I saw in the transcripts.
the transcript alone does make this segment seem like a more thoughtful exchange. Its their body language, and the pauses, that change the narrative when you see it.
is anyone else concerned about the judgement of a woman who named her children bristol and trig?
No. Her whimsy in naming her children is about the only thing I actually like about Palin. Actually, her pleasure in Todd being an active parent to their kids, and her amusement at her First Dude hosting the former first ladies' tea, also endear her to me.
I hope to God that I never have to live under her mal-administration, but I have no problem with how she names her kids.
What IS weird is that she named her kids odd names well over a decade ago. that was long before it became "cool" to do so.
I always think of the big era of weird kid names as being the late sixties and the early seventies (which, admittedly, is closer to when Palin was born than to when she was naming her kids).
The Zappa children, Dweezil, Moon-Unit, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen come to mind.
Also, Peekaboo Street.
In my high school class of 1987, there was a girl named Rain (her parents were hippys).
Grace Slick named her kid Free, and Abbie Hoffman named his kid America, and Cher named her kid Chastity (all of which I know from a Doonesbury cartoon), all in the late sixties.
This isn't about Sarah Palin. It's fundamentally about John McCain. John McCain chose Sarah Palin, and John McCain is the one running for President. That John McCain would go with his gut and choose someone who he felt did not qualify for President demonstrates that McCain got caught up in the heat of the moment, and made a rash decision -- the same way George Bush got us into Iraq.
On Russia, didn't she do a Bozo-no,no in stating under what circumstances a McCain/Palin administration would commit the USA to war (a nuclear one at that)? I thought every US President since WW2 bent over backwards to keep that type of thing purposely vague because commonsense would say we don't want to a: tip our hand to the enemy; b: box ourselves into a corner (isn't this how WW1 started?); c: it's just stupid.
Read Article Five of the NATO treaty:
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.
The whole point of NATO is that all signatories treat an attack on one as an attack on all. It is specifically intended to be a tripwire for Russian aggression in Eastern Europe.
Are Democrats now calling for the United States to back away from commitments to multinational treaties and pull out of NATO?
I think we're calling for not extending that treaty to a nation that would promptly use it as a tool in starting a war with Russia. Right now they are thinking, "if only we were in NATO, we could take those provinces back and Russia wouldn't DARE stop us!"
No. This has nothing to do with upholding existing treaties and alliance commitments (something the Bush Administration feels free to change to suit its own whim and fancy) . This has everything to do with extending our entangling alliances with small state actors potentially pulling us into pretty devastating wars that do not advance the national security of the United States nor is in the best interest of its citizens. I would have thought any sane Republican would feel the same way.
Hopefully the headlines tomorrow will reflect two things:
1. Sarah Palin threatened war with Russia
2. She didn't know what the Bush Doctrine is
Dangerous and incompetent. There's your meme right there.
I've never been mayor of a small town in Alaska or even a governor. I know more foreign policy than she does. She appears to have certain words and phrases memorized. Obviously she has been heavily coached.
It's not about her or how she answered the questions, it's about John McCain and why the hell he picked someone who had to be trained by former Bush advisors for an interview with freaking Charlie Gibson.
doing in Texas tomorrow? Fundraisers I suppose? Since this is an open thread, I suppose anything is on-topic.
The press is trying to make excuses for her not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is, saying that most people don't. Duh. Most people haven't accepted the position of running for vice president. I only watched a clip of it on CNN, but she was stumbling around on all the foriegn policy questions that she answered, and I also didn't like the way she said,"How do you mean, Charlie?" when he asked her about the doctrine. It was as though she was humoring him in her tolerance of his question recognizing that he is a two year old. Sheesh.
She is absolutely nuts. Fortunately, the polls are starting to shift back as people hear more about her. And if McCain wins? no worries as the rest of the world will marginalize us as they have had it with the insanity that is America.
How in God's name can ANYONE defend her competence in that interview? Are you kidding? WTF???? Please. Now I know why she's been hiding.
Actually, Governor Palin outlined a national defense threshold for pre-emptive strike that was considerably less aggressive than Bush and more in keeping with standard US policy. She stated that a country would have to present an IMMINENT threat to justify a pre-emptive strike. That is a proviso that had been dropped by Bush.
She was rejecting the Bush Doctrine.
The problem was that she didn't even know she was doing it. And it was obvious.
This is why the "Palin as batshit hawk" meme is the wrong one. The real problem is that she is talking out of her ass and has no idea what pre-emptive war is.
She thought she was agreeing with the pre-emptive war doctrine, and then she defined it as opposing imminent threats, which is NOT pre-emptive war.
What makes you think John McCain supports the more extreme components of the Bush Doctrine? Most retired military commanders are very cautious in committing US troops.
George Bush is not running for a third term.
When a candidate makes up a song about bombing Iran, I think it's safe to say that caution has been effectively thrown by the wayside. What makes you think that John McCain doesn't support the more extreme components of the Bush Doctrine?
I've already explained. Most military guys are the MOST cautious in committing US forces. They tend to follow the Powell Doctrine, both in terms of when US military force should be used and the requirement for an end-strategy.
"do unto others before they do unto you" is basically a slightly revised version of Nixon's "madman theory" of warfare for dealing with unconventional threats, EVEN IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHO THEY ARE, you attack SOMEBODY.. to deter potential attackers..
Its basically a state-sanctioned form of terror..
<sarcasm>This obviously served us well in Cambodia, driving the rural Cambodians away from moderate positions and into the welcoming "arms" of the Khmer Rouge..
</sarcasm>
You also have to ALWAYS get revenge for ANY act against you. This is why they are so anxious to get into a war with Iran - its long overdue payback for the 1979 capture of the US embassy, and why we attacked Iraq, its payback for his abandonment of us by invading our ally Kuwait even though we had been aiding Saddam for 20 years, etc. And its why we supported the Khmer Rouge against the then victorious Vietnamese, as payback to the Vietnamese for Vietnam, and why we supported Saddam for so long, as payback to Iran for above.
Neocons never forget..
Oh, dear... Andrea Mitchell is going to get another sternly worded letter from the McCain camp! At this rate, she's not going to be even allowed on the campaign bus, much less get decent seat...
Now here is someone to lead us.
Obama would, he said, "transform Washington" and "make government cool again."
See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctri ne
It's pretty thorough. Yes, Gibson only offered one element of the Bush Doctrine - pre-emptive war - but that was clearly the most far-reaching element of it.
Her response showed that she was unfamiliar with ANY definition of the Bush Doctrine.
Bush is irrelevant. Palin is running to be John McCain's VP and, therefore, needs to understand the "McCain Doctrine".
she would inherit a tabula rasa, where no administrations before his have had an effect.
I mean, why understand how you got where you are? There's terrorists to kill!
Who the fuck do you think has McCain's ear? He's even MORE in bed with the Bill Kristols of the world than Bush ever was! Look, about 3 years ago, John McCain lost his goddamn mind. We really need to come to terms with that.
Anyone ever see the movie "Idiocracy".
Art imitates life.
In this case life imitates art.
We keep voting in the Sarah Palins of the world we will end up with:
President and five time World Wrestling champion:
Dwayne Allisandro Mountain Dew Camacho
Perhaps we need to remember that someday we might want to know who's ass it is and why it was farting.
I think it was smart of Palin to seek "in what respect" from Gibson to such a broad question. When he turned it around, obviously smelling blood, she should have pushed further for him to clarify.
The Bush Doctrine is a phrase used to describe various related foreign policy principles of United States president George W. Bush, created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The phrase initially described the policy that the United States had the right to treat countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups as terrorists themselves, which was used to justify the invasion of Afghanistan. Later it came to include additional elements, including the controversial policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented a threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate (used to justify the invasion of Iraq), a policy of supporting democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating the spread of terrorism, and a willingness to pursue U.S. military interests in a unilateral way. Some of these policies were codified in a National Security Council text entitled the National Security Strategy of the United States published on September 20, 2002.
It appears that you get your foreign policy information the same way McCain does... Wikipedia! However, at least he attempts to change a few words before committing wikiplagiarism.
Actually, it was a pretty softball question. The Bush doctrine i, as you say, a pretty broad and nebulous thing. If she had picked any version of it, and part of it, and described how she felt about it, that would have been an answer to the question, and it would have been treated as such. She had no clue what the Bush doctrine was, when forced to guess, she asked if he meant Bush's world view, so she wasn't able to give any of the possible answers. When it was explained to her, she still couldn't give a meaningful or coherent answer.
It's reckless and dangerous. And McCain clearly supports it too.
Unfortunately, I have no idea if Palin knows what it is...even now.
Could we please get a few more McCain/Palin/Bush apologists and sympathizers on board this forum? /snark
Well, my more right leaning co-workers are thinking much less of her recently and I am sure that tonight did her no favors. And these are not politically well educated people...
...the gilding over the rot is becoming noticable.
And as an aside, you know, I think it would have been really cool to elect a COMPETANT female president. I am happy to support a COMPETANT black candidate. I oppose the SHIFTY opponent who can't work with his own rules of honor and his INCOMPETANT VP candidate. I absolutely detest the idea of trying to vote in a woman for VP JUST to get a woman in the job and "break the glass ceiling". It totally makes my wife and my skin crawl. There are far worse things than NOT having HRC as President, and ONE of them is a Pres. Palin NOT a Pres. Obama. (Does that spell it out clear enough?)
Paul Krugman's latest column slams McCain, and it's title is "Blizzard of Lies":
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/opinio n/12krugman.html?hp
In the interview, Gibson used the term "Blizzard of words".
It's not like either of those are really common idioms. On the other hand I doubt Charlie was sending coded messages.
Very odd.
This bush doctrine stuff isnt really the damaging story coming out of this. For me its the Georgia-Russia war statements that she made. Not that her position is wildly out of step with McCain's or Obama's for that matter. But the more people think her as potentially having her fingers all over the nukes with a "God's plan" agenda, instead of her as just being the latest interesting and compelling political figure on the scene, is great for us! That and the Matt Damon viral video is the daisy ad for 2008.
That's all I can say about this interview. If people vote for her specifically BECAUSE she doesn't understand the issues, then this country is doomed beyond repair. From what I can tell, her entire appeal is her lack of knowledge, and how awful it is that anyone would hurt her feelings by making her answer questions about her job. uuggghhhh
I'm now in the habit of donating money to Obama every time she opens her mouth and says something completely insane. I don't think of it as a game, it's just my gut level reaction to her. She just makes me feel sick down to my bones, like I have to do whatever I can to end this nightmare.
So now I'm off to go drop more benjamins in the sanity bucket. Anyone want to join me?
She was terrible, but the way I look at it, she got schooled better by Charlie Gibson than by all of those Bush and McCain advisers. What does this say about them?
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