2) Given that the gobbledy-gook answers that randomly generate at InterviewPalin.com are actually starting to be less surreal than what comes out of her mouth, have we reached a subject that is invulnerable to parody?
3) Do we really know whether or not Sarah Palin is Sacha Baron Cohen's greatest role?
Of concern to McCain's campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin's interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing.
The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.
After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.
There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.
My coworker, upon hearing that Sarah Palin doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is:
"She sucks. She's the suckiest suck that ever sucked. I can't wait until she becomes President."
Even I am amazed. Said coworker is normally much mellower than that. And, to be fair, much less sexist* in her choice of language. But I think the point holds.
*Disclaimer: Pointing out that Palin is totally unqualified using traditional metrics is not sexist. The word suck is, as are, arguably, traditional metrics.
How about a link to Jennifer Moody's blog:It is simply not possible to be both a parent and a high-powered executive and give both jobs your absolute, undivided energy. (Frankly, it’s not possible to be only ONE of those things and give it your absolute, undivided energy 100 percent of the time, but I digress.) One or the other, and sometimes both, will be dropped from the priority list every single day.
....
God bless women who want to lead. I have every confidence in women as governors, women as politicians, women as leaders of countries. They should not have to sacrifice parenting to accomplish any of that.
But the reality is, they do. Just like their husbands have done for so long.
And so, for her sake and her family’s, I’m sending up a prayer. Because something’s going to have to give, and I’m betting it won’t be the job.
Moody gets it right; even with the tremendous amount of help Palin is sure to get, something's going to give.
I've linked to a lot of stuff that is critical of Palin - and rightly so. That doesn't mean I think she or her family are immune to the stress they are about to go through. Far from it - which is part of the reason I am linking to Moody's blog post as well.
That said, I can't get over the fact that Palin gets help of the kind she would seek to deny others through her policy preferences. On some level, that has to produce cognitive dissonance for her. I hope. Certainly it should for her would-be voters.
Part of a comment found elsewhere on this blog:This is why she had won my vote. She is a mom a wife that was not groomed to be a politican. She reminds me of mothers I met at soccer fields, basketball, baseball and the hockey arena cheering on their kids. They are caring, loving and speak from the heart. Not a person that went to elite universities with a goal in mind to be a politican and willing to do what ever it takes. She does not take sides but only looks out for the average person.
This is the same argument advanced as evidence for GWB in 2000. I don't particularly think it's a good reason to vote for someone, but clearly there are a lot of people who do.
That said, I want to note a distinction that I think is blurred - quite intentionally - by this argument: Namely, that 'politician' and 'elitist' and 'craven' (maybe 'lacking principles') are all different categories. Yes, some people are all three, it's true. But they're not the same thing, and there are plenty of people who are one or two but not all three.
The commenter above - who I am using an example for a more generic argument - seems to think that being educated is equivalent to being elitist and craven.
Yes, I'm back to the anti-intellectual and anti-education bias. I think such a bias is dangerous and stupid. Maybe more later, but I have to go now.
UPDATE: That comment implies some other things which I think are wrong...
1) That Obama, in comparison, doesn't care about his family. This is just insulting.
2) That anyone who does desire to be involved in politics is somehow automatically lacking principles, except for Sarah Palin - because she clearly desires to be involved in politics, having run for office seven times (two city council, two mayor, one failed Lt. Governor, one Governor, and now VPOTUS)?
3) That Palin has somehow remained not a politician despite being the governor of a state and a former mayor. (And if that's true, how does that jibe with the claim that she has the necessary experience to lead the country? Is it all of a sudden no longer necessary to have political experience to head the US government?)
Friend JC writes in regarding the intersection of Sarah Palin's family and the election....If Sarah Palin wants to keep her family/children as an untouchable subject in the political world, then she shouldn't be parading the crew out at political events or using them as props in her speeches and in developing her political persona. You can't have it both ways. If you're running on "family values" than your own personal family values are absolutely fair game for fair criticism, especially due to the double standards she holds for her and her family. She's out there saying that you can be VP with 5 children under 18, including an infant, including a disabled child, including a pregnant teen, but fighting against supports for other working mothers, such as subsidized childcare and extended familial leave policies. I don't think that it's anti-feminist to admit that working mothers simply cannot to do it all on their own. They require extra help and adjusted circumstances. Working men need these things too, but women's needs are greater, due to the fact they're the ones gestating, giving labor, and breastfeeding the child, a process that takes up at least a year and ideally more like 3 years. She seems to shun assistance for her family, which demeans the way the vast majority of American families live their lives.
There are plenty of political issues that make Sarah Palin an easy target for democrats, but pointing these out only helps secure left-leaning voters. If we want to capture independents and fed-up Republicans, we need to show the hypocrisy and lies inherent in the Republican party and their candidates. The criticism doesn't have to be personal, it just needs to be pointed. Sarah Palin claims to be just like you, but she's not, for X, Y, and Z reasons (wealth and privilege among them). Sarah Palin claims to support famllies, but her decisions and policies, such as cutting funding for social programs don't support this fact. Sarah Palin's daughter has choices Sarah Palin doesn't think your daughters deserve. Sarah Palin is an extremist who doesn't believe in contraception and thinks rape victims of any age should be forced to carry to term their attacker's offspring. John McCain used to believe the opposite of most of those (and OMG there are so many things he's changed his position on in the last 4 years!) and now he agrees with Palin? How can you trust a man like this? Dems need to start getting personal, because the Republicans already have. And that doesn't mean they have to be nasty, but they need to fight hard. The media isn't doing their job, so the Dems have to be the ones to bring out the skeletons in their closets.
The only thing I'd add is to make it crystal clear that the only reason Sarah Palin could succeed as governor of Alaska, or as VP, with her family is that she has staff take care of damn near everything: Shopping, laundry, child care, etc. That's a luxury almost no one has, so the next time you hear someone saying "well, Sarah Palin can do it," just remember that it's actually Sarah Palin with substantial help - help that the rest of us don't get. It's not Supermom; it's Supermom and Friends.
The other alternative is that she really is refusing that help, and thus neglecting her job. There's just no way to do both.
From a DH letter, about the McCain-Palin ticket:Just look at her record as governor of Alaska. That is the kind of leadership we can expect from John McCain as our leader.
Hmm.... what's the phrase... oh yeah: WTF?!
Warning: The bits involving Sean Hannity and Dick Morris might make your head explode. Especially you, Brazeale.
I found two posts fact-checking Palin's RNC speech; the second in particular does a thorough job:
Obsidian Wings
Reality-Based Community
Based on the amount of lying she did in her speech tonight, she'll be a great replacement for Cheney, and fit in well with other Republican elites.
Like many others, I am constantly astounded that the media gives people a free pass when it comes to facts.
Found over at Obsidian Wings:Many observers, not least on ObWi, have remarked that McCain is a gambler, a “hunch player,” and that the naming of the unvetted Palin is just the latest and most conspicuous example of this flaw. It bespeaks (we say) a lack of judgment, the very quality McCain is supposed to exhibit supremely over the untested Obama.
But in the context of American politics, I fear, this analysis is wrong.
Around half of the American populace, based on the elections of both 2000 and 2004, actually likes hunch players, prefers them to smartass “experts” and intellectuals who have demonstrated competence in the classroom or in life. It is hardly a coincidence that the Republican nomination falls yet again to someone who drifted through the lower depths of his college/academy class.
This is not a bug, but a feature. Many Americans, perhaps a majority, have come to distrust open displays of intelligence, and prefer to rely on “character,” by which they apparently mean “capable of making decisions without stopping to consider the consequences.” Hence Iraq, hence Palin. And pointing this out – pointing out, for example, that Palin is completely unproven in both national and international policy – is irrelevant. So what? She's a “soulmate” of McCain (as Putin once was of Bush?). We can trust her. She has character.
Lots of 'murikans voted for GWB in 2000. Not enough to win, mind you, but a lot.
Far too many lefty bloggers are concerned with a) the fact that Palin is really unqualified and b) how offensive/craven McCain's pick is in terms of historical precedent, departure from the modern political norm, etc.
Instead, they need to realize that the vast majority of voters are several more degrees removed from political elites than your average (white, suburban, male) lefty blogger. Just because you're taking this as a personal affront because McCain is deviating from the political norm doesn't mean that other people feel the same way. Not only is the Republican base happy about this (and therefore more likely to turn out in November, which, for my money, is going to be one of two deciding factors in the campaign - the other being Obama's ability to register and turn out voters), but it's stupid to assume so-called swing voters won't buy into the McCain-Palin ticket.
Shorter me: Class-privileged lefty bloggers need to get over themselves and their preconceptions.
UPDATE: Alternative shorter me: Don't expect to win just because you're right. If making arguments on the merits worked, GWB would have never been Preznit.
Is that fair? Of course not - ask anyone involved in any kind of social justice movement.
From Tapped:Now today comes the news that Palin's 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. In the news release, the McCain campaign made sure to state that:
Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, McCain aides said.
While it's obvious why they made this statement to assure the public that Bristol was not coerced into keeping the baby (after all, she does have a parent who is a staunch opponent of the right to choose and is currently on the Republican presidential ticket), as my significant other pointed out, there's some serious hypocrisy at play here. I mean, John McCain and Sarah Palin don't believe women have a right to choose. It's absolutely absurd for the campaign to emphasize the fact that Bristol "made this decision," and then push for policies that take away that choice.
If I were, say, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, or anyone else with a brain, I would be hammering home this hypocrisy starting today. Choice-for-me-but-not-for-thee takes on extra-special meaning when coming from people who support anti-choice public policies.
From Huffington Post (but via OG and Daily Kos), it appears that the McCain campaign didn't do much - if any - vetting of VP pick Sarah Palin:On Saturday, a Democrat tasked with opposition research contacted the Huffington Post with this piece of information: as of this weekend, the McCain campaign had not gone through old newspaper articles from the Valley Frontiersman, Palin's hometown newspaper.
How does he know? The paper's (massive) archives are not online. And when he went to research past content, he was told he was the first to inquire.
"No one else had requested access before," said the source. "It's unbelievable. We were the only people to do that, which means the McCain camp didn't."
Not only is this inconceivable by traditional political standards, but it adds even more credence to the argument advanced by my coworker that McCain make the pick late in the week and as a snap response to the events of the Democratic National Convention.
John McCain: Picking the second-in-command of the most powerful country in the world on a whim. As a reaction. And yet we're to believe it's Obama that lacks the judgment necessary to be President.
Why don't reporters and legislators have a high opinion of the governor?
Gregg Erickson (Anchorage Daily News): It is clear that she has not paid much attention to the nitty-gritty unglamorous work of government, of gaining consensus, and making difficult compromises. She seems to be of the view that politics should be all rather simple. That often appeals to the wider public, but frustrates those who see themselves as laboring in the less glamorous parts of the vineyard.
Dave3544: Then [MSNBC is] pushing the idea that her selection "opens up the West" for McCain because, apparently, we vote for people who share a vague geographic designation with us. No wait, that's the South with the shared heritage of treason.
Dave 3544: Did John Fucking McCain just tout the fact that she's a member of a union and her husband is a member of a union?
Steve Benen: PALIN ON HRC.... One of the more offensive angles to the McCain campaign's running mate announcement is how breathtakingly cynical it is. As the McCain gang sees it, supporters of Hillary Clinton are driven entirely by gender concerns -- the notion that Democrats may have actually liked Hillary for her record and agenda apparently isn't a consideration -- so picking a woman, any woman, even a far-right anti-choice woman, will necessarily drive Democrats to vote Republican.
I suspect this will backfire. No one likes to be played for a fool, and these crass tactics will probably be perceived by Clinton backers as more insulting than anything else.
And yet, in a move that was about as subtle as a sledgehammer, Sarah Palin praised Hillary Clinton during her first appearance on the national stage today, referencing the "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" quote. Before anyone's fooled, though, keep in mind that Palin is not a Clinton fan:Newsweek reports that back in March, at a Women and Leadership event held by the mag, Palin's view of Hillary wasn't quite as charitable: "She said she felt kind of bad she couldn't support a woman, but she didn't like Clinton's 'whining.'
Think Progress: Palin Denies Global Warming is Manmade
Charles Homans: THE PALIN PICK...Howdy folks--I'm a new editor here at the Monthly, and as someone who lived in and reported on Alaska for the entirety of Sarah Palin's tenure as governor (until a couple months ago), I feel like I should jump in here. I'm less quick than Steve to dismiss McCain's pick--the Palin choice does have a gimmicky quality to it, but Obama supporters should still be concerned... In short, Palin can legitimately claim the maverick reformist credentials that McCain himself has long since lost. Her pro-life record helps McCain with the Republican base, her gender might lure away a few Hillary bitter-enders, and her youth goes a little way towards compensating one of McCain's major weaknesses. Palin also manages the Obama-esque feat of commanding a great deal of popularity among people who don't really know what she stands for...
Michael Faris: I agree that it's a pandering move, of the most cynical sort. I also think it's a good move, if you're a cynical Republican.
Eric Martin: Further, it offers something "new" from a Republican Party that is rightly viewed as musty and bankrupt of fresh ideas. [Points to Eric Martin for making the first Michael Palin reference that I've seen. Check the title on the post.]
Palin herself on the VP slot, from just a month ago:Count Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as one of the most surprised that she was chocen as unning mate for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
In an interview just a month ago, she dissed the job, saying it didn’t seem “productive.”
In fact, she said she didn’t know what the vice president does.
Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co.” asked her about the possibility of becoming McCain's ticket mate.
Palin replied: “As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?
This kind of cinches for me McCain's desperation.
