"She gets all the news she needs from the weather report"

(with apologies to Paul Simon)

When I was very young I witnessed the difficulties experienced by African-Americans in a broad range of life's challenges. It was during those formative years I asked myself, "What can I do to avoid encountering these same prejudices?" I chose to be Caucasian. It's worked very well for me. Since the fateful morning of my decision I realize how much easier life has been living as white person in America. Now, for those choosing to be gay, I can't understand that decision. Being gay may be even more difficult than being black. Don't choose gayness!! America's GayDar has improved vastly over the years. You will be found out! Choose straight and white. It works!

Good lord. Just remember, when you don't know a damn thing, all questions are "gotcha" questions.

On Countdown, Margaret Carlson said that Katie Couric sounded like Palin's therapist. "I kept waiting for her to say 'the hour's up'." Perhaps Carlson's confusion comes from the fact that Sarah Palin sounds like she has a delusional complex.

Meanwhile, if there is any phrase Americans should learn this year, it's "false equivalence". Already this morning, ABC compared Palin's gaffes with Biden's plagiarism nonsense, while NBC compared them to "Hilliary might have made a better VP candidate."

So, being a 15-year-old girl raped by your own father is "less than ideal." And gay is "a choice."

Notice how she has flat out refused to actually answer any of the questions put to her. She is smart in a smoke screen kind of way. And apparently she's better at smoke screening in a debate kind of situation. She's not a lipsticked pit bull for nothing.

I just hope the moderator or Biden or someone will point out at some point that she is simply not answering questions. All politicians obfuscate. But this lady doesn't do anything else. Except ramble, I guess.

Notice how she has flat out refused to actually answer any of the questions put to her -chrenson

Until recently she had been overcoached. Now she's being just-Sarah, not that I'm suggesting the climate change makes her do it.

Just heard on Faux News (my bad!) that emails are 100 to 1 demanding that Gwen Ifil be replaced as moderator because she has a book coming out in January that is 'pro Obama'! Yikes!

The book is about Black politicians. Colin Powell is profiled as well.
And by wingnut standards, Tom Brokaw (sp) won't be moderating the next Presidential debate.

Like several others have already, I predict that Palin will get nasty in the debate [not "pole-dancing" nasty, more like "bitch-fight" nasty] and that will carry the news of the day for the entire weekend. Sample headlines:

"Palin offers tough talk"

"Biden can't lay a glove on Palin"

"Scrappy Palin socks it to Hidin' Biden"

"Sassy Sarah Palin"

"'Poll'-dancing Palin fights back"

I also predict the McRib will be back before the end of summer 2009.

I hate to say this, but she actually gave a somewhat reasonable answer on the issue of climate change, since it is possible that a part of the temperature increase could be due to a natural warming trend. That, of course, isn't proven, but I'm not sure that it could be proven one way or the other.

Not to worry though; her score on "reasonable answers" so far is running at something like 25 - 1.

Most revealing of her "abilities" is that most of these questions were on topics that she is the most well versed on. Most people reading them would immediately recognize the self contradictions revealed within each response. But, this does fit very well within the McCain shell game, I mean theme book. Keep the electorate confused enough and you might get lucky enough on election day for the dice to fall in your favor. Country is just a huge craps table for both of these nuts. They deserve each other but Jesus Christ keep me out of their universe.

I am convinced that the Couric interview is a hoax. Sarah Palin has been kidnapped by gay, black and green abortion loving liberals and is being held against her will. She has been replaced by that very liberal Tina Fey. Katy Couric must in on it too because she keeps asking all those hard gotcha questions.

The real Sarah Palin would never appear to be so clueless. Quick call the witchdoctor and pray for Sarah's safe return.

I'm waiting for her to say "well, I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night."

Maybe she is saving that for the debate.

"Palin dodged again, before saying she's uncomfortable with sending a woman to jail for having an abortion. "That's nothing I would ever support," she said."

Yeah, it's murder, but really, it's KINDA murder. 'Cuz if we called it murder and charged accordingly, our numbers would be like Ralph Nader's, ya know?

That's not fair, she's getting better. Still not qualified, and possibly dillusinal, but the interview skills are certainily improving.

I am waiting for her to say "well, I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night."

Maybe she is saving that for the debate.

Jennifer, man's role in climate change may not be proven to you but it is too the vast majority of climate scientists who study it. It does make a world of difference in how we approach it by means of preventing further change or by means of merely attempting to mitigate it. Palin's answer implies that she favors the latter approach which many of us find extremely alarming.

I can only admire Steve Benen's pluck: he says he keeps watching the Palin interviews. This I cannot do, because I have to leap up and scream, or groan in agony that some might buy her schtick, or fling a nearby object at the monitor. It is just too unbearable.
Matt Taibbi was right that the worst thing about her is what she says about us, "...she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask in return for the total surrender of our political power."
Go ahead and watch, Steve, and say hi to the gov for me - I'll be hiding in shame.

She's not a great interviewer, but I'm really worried about tomorrow night. It's gotcha all the way for Biden. If he attacks, he'll be sexist. If he gaffes, he'll be declared stupid. Palin will come out attacking. The media will spin it as a strong performance.

The damning part of the climate change answer is that she said "It doesn't matter what caused it, what matters is how we adress it going forward."

This is the stupidest thing she has yet to say.

Sarah is a type of human that makes my skin crawl.

Unfortunately, too many folks are lulled into their universe.

Our President is one of them. "God told me to take out Saddam."

When theocratic nonsense drives a person in power to do...whatever, people get killed/hurt/fired.

Her belief in Creationism actually diminishes the wonder of our existence. To question the age of the Earth and believe 4.5 billion years is wrong, denies the real miracle of how we evolved, the utter improbability of it all.

The mindset of Sarah's ilk is a very real reason our world is a dangerous place.

Her term for Eskimo... "Ice Arab" is despicable.

Gays ,"choose" is also not very nice and discounts much of what we know about human biology.

Saying she reads "ALL of them" is beyond belief and I hope Gwen asks Joe and Sarah on Thursday Night some really tough questions that cannot be answered in Palinese!

Despite the logical problems with some of her answers, she was much more coherent in this interview. If she does this well in the debates, given the low bar now set for her to clear, McCain gets a bump going into the next debate with Obama.

John Cleese and his Monty Python mates spent years trying to perfect a form of hallucinatory, slapstick humor that Sarah Palin pulls off with equal ease. I keep waiting for her to pull out a parrot and whack it on the podium, an homage if you will, to those that blazed comedy trails before her.

Let's hope her tendency to say too much trips her up tomorrow night. She has such an amazing way of turning a yes or no question into some sort of multi-subject verbal monument. If she says one thing that sounds reasonable, she immediately negates it with a crazy jump to an unrelated subject. "-oh, it has to be job creation!"

Or, as with her "gay friend" story, she simply puts graffiti over her own sign. It would really be great to see a followup interview with her friend regarding her "choice".

Notice how she has flat out refused to actually answer any of the questions put to her.

Since Couric actually repeated her questions when Palin dodged them, I think people did notice, yes. And they noticed that where Palin isn't clueless, she's shifty and evasive. Remind you of any other miserable failures* we know?

I was incensed at her for allowing CBS to edit in a better response to McCain's gaffe at one of her questions, but she's gone far to redeem herself as a professional journalist. Mirabile dictu!

(*I know the Google bomb doesn't work any more.)

There is a very odd, temporary feeling to her. Its like she's already a trivia question.

I have a feeling after Thursday she will somewhat disappear into the background and we won't hear anymore from her after election day. She might end up with a tv job, but I wouldn't even see that lasting. Aside from acting stupid, having a white trash family and being ethically challenged there's not much to her. She's not interesting.

She'll do better than expected (on par with the Gidson interview as opposed to the Couric nightmare), but it will be clear she's a lightweight completely out of her league. That will be the end of the story.

Oh, but I'm betting what's left of my pitiful pension (grateful to have it though) that by the end of the "debate" tomorrow Scarah will be the MEDIA DARLING...Joe the schmoe (?)and a whole NEW TIGHTENING RACE will begin! She just has to have the courage to show up...look oh, so pretty...and snark her way through.

It ain't exactly Cruise breaking down Nicholson at the end of A Few Good Men, but if Palin says that she, personally, would not choose to use a morning-after pill, doesn't that mean that in some circumstances, she's pro-choice? Don't you think she should be pressed REALLY HARD on that issue? Let the "a life is a life" crowd know when Palin's on their side, and when she's a commie liberal baby-killer? Shouldn't we know where Palin's line is, where the sactity of life is or is not ok to butcher? I mean, unless she believes in no forms of abortion (including the morning after-pill, which could explain why rape victims in Wasilla had to pay for their own rape kits.)

I know no one is asking me for advice, but it is my deepest hope that Biden mops the floor with Palin. Because unless he's so deferential during the debate that he practically comes across as castrated, he'll be accused of beating up on Palin. It is, in fact, one of the main reasons why she was chosen for the veep slot, to provide that kind of cover during the debate. So Biden, in the interest of treating her as fairly as any other politician he'd have to debate, humbles her ignorance & makes her regret her chosen path to stupidity. He's gonna do the time, so here's hoping he does the crime.

Jennifer, man's role in climate change may not be proven to you

lou, maybe you need to read more carefully. How you got the manufactured extrapolation above from this: it is possible that a part of the temperature increase could be due to a natural warming trend is really unclear. I mean, feel free to point out anything in that statement that suggests that "man's role in climate change isn't proven to (me)."

People need to work on reading comprehension skills.

But did she read the 2 1/2 page Paulson proposal? I would have loved to hear her explain it to McCain.

Palin's job tomorrow will be lashing out at Obama and Biden as more of the same and tryiing to convince voters that when she's VP and they open up ANWAR that we'll all be getting 3000 dollar checks from the government.

Look for this factoid about Alaskans getting money back from the oil companies to be mentioned more than once.

Choose straight and white. It works!

@ Steve Duncan...

It's funny because it's true.

I wish she had followed up on the Morning-After Pill thing by asking about rape kits.

Kenneth Parcell: I'm a real good sex person. I do it all the different ways.

It ain't exactly Cruise breaking down Nicholson at the end of A Few Good Men, but if Palin says that she, personally, would not choose to use a morning-after pill, doesn't that mean that in some circumstances, she's pro-choice?

Err...isn't our line supposed to be that the morning-after pill is contraception, not abortion?

"Despite the logical problems with some of her answers, she was much more coherent in this interview."

I'm sorry, I can't get past the fact that she is trying too hard to sound smart. She uses "contributed to" when she means "attributed to", and "I'm not going to solely blame all of man's activities on changes in climate" when she means "I'm not going to blame all of climate change on man's activities."

Does this not drive anyone else crazy?

Gov. Palin doesn't come off as a person who has been an avid reader her whole life. Someone should simply ask her about her reading habits - how often, what titles, favorite genre, favorite adaptations, etc. She just doesn't articulate a well-read response to any question I've heard asked of her. She scares me! -Kevo

Sarah Palin reminds me of folks that I know, some of whom I like quite a lot. Of course, these people aren't in high political office, so I forgive them their logic voids and their political/historical ignorance.

For political interviews (and even moreso for political debates), bear in mind that the questions and content are just the libretto, and that what matters is the score, i.e. the emotional takeaway that the audience leaves with. (This was why Obama beat McCain in their first debate even though the transcript suggested a draw.) If Palin seems ditzy and transparently evasive (as she does in the Couric interviews), then she'll be dead meat at the debate. OTOH if she seems Mr. Smith sincere-but-naive, she might pull it out despite giving nonsense answers.

Having all this take place against the backdrop of the financial crisis works against Palin. In times of danger and stress you want somebody serious in charge, and Palin ain't that.

These don't sound nearly so bad as some other answers. At this point her answers may have passed out of disastrously-wretched territory. I'd say she has risen to the level of a rank-and-file Congressional Republican, perhaps one that readers here would mock.

One question is whether our standards have been hopelessly lowered. The difficulty is imagining what we would think if she had started after the convention with these types of answers. Let's imagine another scenario: what if she were replaced with someone else, who then gave these answers?

It will be interesting to see how she does in tomorrow's debate. It's rather scripted, so I am guessing she might do adequately compared with expectations.

From the Simpsons:
Homer(lying):There's a thousand dollar bill in it for you....
Barney: Really? What president is on it?
Homer (caught): Uh, all of them... They're having a party. Jimmy Carter is passed out on the couch.

She was better here--especially toward the end of the video. Her positions may be awful, but anyone who agrees with those positions (and one fears there are many who do) will find less evidence of incoherence and insincerity than there were in the earlier clips. Expectations are so low for the debate that it's going to be really difficult for her not to exceed them, and I think she may exceed them handsomely.

Note that the bit where she gives the impression of being pro-choice is almost certainly clever misdirection. I don't doubt that she has intention to lock up women who have abortions. However neither do most pro-life advocates - they want to enforce the pro-life position by locking up the doctors.

On the other hand, I cut her some slack on the "choice" of orientation issue. Of course, it's a perfectly good warning sign that she has a whole parcel of anti-gay attitudes, but it's not a ridiculous statement because she almost certainly doesn't mean what it sounds like she means. The mainstream sense of gay/homosexual is in terms of same-sex sexual attraction but Evangelicals tend to use and understand it in terms of same-sex sex and/or applying the label gay to oneself. That is, they use it by analogy to adulterer or smoker. The "choice" her friend made wasn't being same-sex attracted, it was living a gay lifestyle, i.e., having gay sex and/or gay relationships. And that _is_ a choice, albeit a no-brainer of one, and Palin's implication that her friend should have chosen differently is cruel and stupid, but not a demand to do the impossible.

Palin is like the agent in the Austin Powers movie who, if asked three times, had to answer.

That's Just What I Said

jennifer wrote: "I hate to say this, but she actually gave a somewhat reasonable answer on the issue of climate change, since it is possible that a part of the temperature increase could be due to a natural warming trend."

You will be relieved to know that there's no need for you to say something you "hate to say", because it is wrong.

There is no "natural warming trend" that explains any part of the extreme, rapid warming of the Earth over the last century, particularly the rapidly accelerating warming of the past half-century. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that in the absence of the anthropogenic warming, the Earth would probably be slowly cooling.

On the other hand, the extreme, rapid warming is entirely explained by the empirically observed increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations that are the direct result of human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels.

The simple fact is that there is no doubt whatsoever that human activities, principally the burning of fossil fuels, are rapidly increasing the atmospheric concentrations of CO2, methane, and other so-called "greenhouse gases", that the increased concentration of these gases is causing the Earth system to retain more of the Sun's heat, and that this warming is already having severely harmful effects which are only going to get worse -- MUCH worse -- if our emissions continue to increase at an accelerating rate as they are now.

Sarah Palin is a bought-and-paid-for shill for the fossil fuel corporations, and she is spouting deliberate lies in order to protect their profits. Don't be deceived.

They've had weeks to prepare for this debate. They've had her working on it non-stop for how many days now? There's only fifty or so questions she could possibly be asked with memorized 2 minute answers that she has to hit relatively accurately. Any time she strays from the message her coaches slap her across the face. She doesn't have to answer any follow-up. C'mon! What normally functioning adult couldn't accomplish this?

At least she referred to the morning-pill, which prevents egg implantation, as a "contraceptive." The anti-choicers usually refer to it, inaccurately, as an abortifacient.

It could be, of course, that she merely got this "wrong" -- ie is not well enough informed of the wingnut perspective on this.

Sorry, I meant "morning-after" pill.

Steve, she doesn't get better because she believes she's doing just fine. With her, this is what passes for thought, and she is actually incapable of self-reflection. She's gotten by so far in life on her boundless self-confidence, because those who don't stop to think just resonate with that self-confidence and equate it with being right. If you read her answers in the Alaska debates, she was confidently slinging the same gobbledegook then, and apparently the voters didn't notice.

***Err...isn't our line supposed to be that the morning-after pill is contraception, not abortion?

Posted by: John on October 1, 2008 at 9:33 AM | PERMALINK***

OUR line, meaning Democrats/liberals/people with brains in their heads? Yes. But to the anti-choice propagandists on the right (you know, the ones who will be voting McCain-Palin) the morning-after pill is not a form of contraception, but a form of abortion and therefore murder. And yet, Palin talks about how she personally wouldn't choose to use it. So for anyone who believes that the morning-after pill is abortion, and they can't in good conscience vote for anyone who believes in choice, Palin is talking about choice. So until/unless she starts yammering about how all forms of abortion (including some forms of contraception?) should be made illegal, anti-choice advocates who vote for her are dumb lying hypocrites.

But you knew that...

***Err...isn't our line supposed to be that the morning-after pill is contraception, not abortion?

Posted by: John on October 1, 2008 at 9:33 AM | PERMALINK***

OUR line, meaning Democrats/liberals/people with brains in their heads? Yes. But to the anti-choice propagandists on the right (you know, the ones who will be voting McCain-Palin) the morning-after pill is not a form of contraception, but a form of abortion and therefore murder. And yet, Palin talks about how she personally wouldn't choose to use it. So for anyone who believes that the morning-after pill is abortion, and they can't in good conscience vote for anyone who believes in choice, Palin is talking about choice. So until/unless she starts yammering about how all forms of abortion (including some forms of contraception?) should be made illegal, anti-choice advocates who vote for her are dumb lying hypocrites.

But you knew that...

Mark,

"The "choice" her friend made wasn't being same-sex attracted, it was living a gay lifestyle, i.e., having gay sex and/or gay relationships. And that _is_ a choice, albeit a no-brainer of one, and Palin's implication that her friend should have chosen differently is cruel and stupid, but not a demand to do the impossible."

No, but it's the equivalent of saying that if a robber points a gun at someone's head and demands their money, the person should say "No, I'm not giving it to you. I will never be coerced into doing anything." The robbery victim could "choose" to not give up their money and risk death, but no sane, self-respecting person would ever do this.

She's absolutely a ditz, but I will say one thing. Palin should get royalties for all the material she gives SNL.

Lee: 'No, but it's the equivalent of saying that if a robber points a gun at someone's head and demands their money, the person should say "No, I'm not giving it to you. I will never be coerced into doing anything."'

Yes and no. Yes in that _I_ agree that it's like that, but then I don't think there's any moral reason to resist handing over your money if that's the best way of escaping unharmed. But no, Sarah Palin doesn't think it's like that, she thinks it's like being pressured to do something that one morally ought to resist, like pressing the switch that blows up the boat full of people (recent Batman movie reference). Even that's not right - she thinks that it's merely like _wanting_ to blow up the boat full of people. The cruel, stupid, superstitious thing is not thinking that one should abstain from gay sex in a good cause (e.g., because one has made a commitment to monogamy, or because one has HIV and there are no condoms), it's that thinking that abstaining from gay sex is a good cause in and of itself.

Just to clarify: the morning-after pill can prevent implantation, but its main job is to prevent ovulation so that fertilization cannot occur. It's the "can prevent implantation" part that makes extremists nervous. Because we all know that whenever a uterine lining rejects a fertilized egg, a little baby's soul dies and the baby Jesus cries.

(The part they forget to tell you is that this happens naturally at least 30 percent of the time. Why does God kill so many innocent babies!?)

I hate to say this, but she actually gave a somewhat reasonable answer on the issue of climate change, since it is possible that a part of the temperature increase could be due to a natural warming trend. That, of course, isn't proven, but I'm not sure that it could be proven one way or the other.

Oh, if we only we had some way of assessing the impact of human activities on historical global climate patterns! If only there was such a thing as science!

There sure are a lot of assholes who post here.

I invite any of you to point to solid proof that not even a fraction of 1% of the global temperature rise of the past 100 years can be attributed to natural causes.

Please, throw it out there and prove how "unscientific" it is for anyone to suggest that even a minute part of the temp rise can be explained through things like volcanic eruptions, sun spot cycles, or any number of other things that can impact global climate.

The unsupported claim that NONE of the warming can be attributed to natural causes, not even the smallest fraction, is every bit as extreme as the wingnut claims that the warming has nothing to do with human activity. Both groups are extremist idiots. Worse yet, to pretend that acknowledging that a very small part of the warming might - just might - not be because of human activity is the equivalent of denying man-made global warming makes you look not only extremist, but also illiterate and assholish.

But hey, carry on, Mr. Because I Said So It's Scientific Fact - one and all of you.

Mark,

"The cruel, stupid, superstitious thing is not thinking that one should abstain from gay sex in a good cause (e.g., because one has made a commitment to monogamy, or because one has HIV and there are no condoms), it's that thinking that abstaining from gay sex is a good cause in and of itself."

I guess I don't need to convince you of this, but anyone who think homosexuality is wrong--whether the sexual orientation itself or the act of having gay sex--should never, under any circumstances, be President or Vice-President of the United States.

Jennifer wrote: "Please, throw it out there and prove how 'unscientific' it is for anyone to suggest that even a minute part of the temp rise can be explained through things like volcanic eruptions, sun spot cycles, or any number of other things that can impact global climate."

It is unscientific because in point of fact, there have been NO "volcanic eruptions" or "sun spot cycles" during the current period of extreme, rapid warming that can explain any part of that warming. Such events simply have not happened.

The empirically observed anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations is, in itself, sufficient to explain the observed warming. There is no need to invoke any other cause to explain it. Nor have any such other causes been actually identified or observed. That doesn't stop people who don't like the idea of anthropogenic causation from making baseless speculations that there might be some mysterious, unknown, unobserved "natural" cause.

The fact is, that thousands -- and let me repeat that, thousands -- of the world's top climate scientists have studied this issue for decades, and they know a lot more about it than you seem to think they do.

You would better serve yourself by studying actual climate science than by engaging in ill-informed speculation and getting angry with people who correct your mistaken views.

I recommend the website www.RealClimate.org as a good place to start. It is run and written by several leading climate scientists and includes links to information that is very, very helpful to non-scientists who want to understand the science of climate change.

(In other words, Palin believes sexual orientation is a "choice" people make?) - Benen

You're wrong on this. All of those answers were acceptable. I'm no Palin fan, but those are the kinds of answers she needs to make and keep making during the debate if she wants to beat Biden. And if she does make those kinds of answers, she has a good shot at doing it, stunning the media, and giving us another one of those narrative reversals the media love so much.

I detest the McCain/Palin candidacy, but these four responses were all well within the range of what centrist voters think, and were not particularly poorly phrased. And, yes, for many people, especially gay women, homosexuality is a "choice", in the sense that they have both straight and gay relationships during the course of their lives, both of which they find fulfilling. Is Anne Heche straight or gay? What about Susan Sontag? Or that former head of NOW?

Sidebar: There's plenty of sexism at CBS for how it's handled Couric as its evening news anchor.

She has done an excellent job in these interviews, and CBS should be ashamed of itself for ever backing away from full support for her.

Every election, we see the Religious Right and its GOP handmaiden attack Democrats who claim they are “personally against� abortion, but support reproductive choice rights.

Well, now the shoe is on the other foot.

Silly me. I remember at least 5 volcanic explosions in the past 20 or so years. But some guy on the internet insists that they couldn't even account for a fraction of a percentage of global temperature rise, even though he still can't link to anything that any scientist has ever said to the effect that there NO contribution, no matter how minute, to warming caused by natural events. Maybe that's because scientists as a general rule don't make stupid blanket statements.

Only fools make blanket statements. I'll just leave it at that.

Jennifer, if you want to remain willfully ignorant, you have every right to "leave it at that."

I'm pretty sure there's no question as to who is being "willfully ignorant" here; it's those who are projecting a scientific certainty that they can't back up with any definitive statement from actual scientists, and those who conflate the notion that there is a possibility that some small part of global warming could be attributable to nature with "you're an idiot who denies human-caused global warming." Then again, just because those of us on the left are generally smarter than those on the right, it doesn't mean that we don't have our share of people who are unable to hold two thoughts simultaneously as well as those for whom everything exists only in starkest shades of black and white.