no more Palin pleez, thx

when all this is over, and Obama is in the White House, i look forward to the inevitable book by some McCain staffer detailing all the hilarity behind the Palin pick, her cramming, etc.

Schmidt? Bounds? Holtz-Eakin?

I don't think I can watch that debate. That woman is just too painful to listen to, the bar is set so low as to be an inperceptable bump on the floor.

Shhh! Don't say that out loud, otherwise one of her non-existent advisers/coaches will tell her to scrap that formulation.

In all seriousness, I'd like to know what new ideas she's referencing. The only new idea she came up with was one that was already implemented by Obama.

She really is Tiny Fey.
fooled me.

I think this is a clear case of Hanlon's Razor, actually. Remember, McCain never vetted her - I imagine the simplest explanation is that this is the kind of improvisation Palin naturally tends toward, and since she's new to the ticket, she's not had time to learn a set of tricks which work on this stage.

She has finally caught on to John McCain's way of making lies into truth. Just say it and MSM repeats it and it becomes truth.

She shouldn't lie about it, and the press shouldn't chit her for it: preparing for the debates is responsible and laudable, and the use of a coach to assist in that preparation does not diminish a candidate in the least.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/us/politics/01biden.html?em

Though an Experienced (fill-in-the-blank), Biden Is Often Tripped Up by Spontaneity

It's her version of McCain's claim to be the "real" agent of change, and it's not necessarily dumb. McCain/Palin have been forced into Obama's frame of the election and are fighting the campaign on his territory. I think it's good news for Obama, but the Republican strategy at least makes some sense, given where they are in the polls.

It's not a theatrical performance but a big F-u to the Dems from the rush hannity savage wing of the country.

While rational people can see through this mess, Palin and McCain do not care. They believe that if they repeat something enough, not only will they believe it themselves but others will as well.

I am really now of the belief that McCain really believes he is the man he says he is (honor, trustworthy, heroic, etc.). I think he is clinically incapable of ever seeing anything he does as untoward and dishonorable (see the Des Moines Register(?) interview footage making the rounds today to see how he bristles at any suggestion he is not 'John McCain War Hero and Savior').

Palin? She's just a typical poltical sleaze. She simply doesnt care what she says. She knows well enough that enough people will buy the BS and no one will ever really question her too hard or guffaw directly in her face (at least paid media people who must maintain their 'objectivity'). So Palin can say night is day and day is night and she will pay no price for it.

This is why she will 'win' the debate (thank god VP debates mean bupkiss, though). Biden is screwed.

Sad.

I don't have a debate coach. I have quite a few people who are giving us information about the record of Obama and Biden.

In other words, she and the McCain camp don't expect this debate to be about issues and solutions. They want to make it about gotcha attacks. But Linda Bailey thinks she's nice.

I sometimes feel as if Palin's candidacy is some kind of satirical performance art, and I'm just not in on the joke.

Oh, it's not that hard to figure out. The wiser heads in the GOP realize that the country is such a mess right now that the only way to revive the conservative brand is to try to convince voters that the Democrats are to blame - so they want Obama to win and then 4 years from now they'll blame Iraq, the economy, climate change, etc. on the Democrats and the voters will go along. I don't normally go for conspiracy theories but McCain/Palin? How can you take that seriously?

Regarding Palin's answers to policy questions, does it bother anyone else she constantly prefaces her answers (repeatedly so in the Couric interviews) with "Personally, I believe..." "Personally I would/wouldn't....."? Her personal views may inform her decisions, her attitudes toward legislation and regulations much as they do for most of her peers. But she uses this tool to completely ignore informing the electorate what she would advocate when in office. OK, you personally wouldn't get an abortion after being raped by your father. Would you attempt to make it illegal to perform an abortion for someone else who had? Answer the fucking question!! And why does the interviewer let her off the hook, always? Press your question. Don't move on. Ask it 15 different ways. Insist on knowing what laws she'd back. Tell her, the audience, the cameraman and every member of the crew and her entourage present nothing else is getting discussed until we move beyond what she personally believes and get to what she wants our government to enforce. ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTIONS!!

Steve, you seem to be underrating the degree to which McCain has been trying to sell himself as the true change candidate. He has an ad up claiming the Obama is more of the same (same tired liberal ideas). And his convention speech focused on how he was going to change Washington. So I don't believe people in his camp are going to see this as a gaffe.

I don't have a debate coach.

OH my goddess. I am literally laughing out loud. Literally! Did she play basketball without a coach too? Nope, no coach. Just this guy who stood on the sidelines telling us what plays to do next....

Really, you could not make this person up if you tried.

Just imabine how badly McCain's internal polling must be looking to cause him to abandon his own themes and adopt, verbatim, Obama's.

The Republican brand is so toxic that McCain and Palin are pretending to be knockoff-brand Democrats. Amazing.

Considering the latest Drudge driven kerfuffle about Gwen Ifill's impending book about Obama and the allegations of partiality, I think there's a 50-50 chance McCain has found his reason to cancel the debates of tomorrow anyway.

Three words---just three little words say it all: Lipstick on roadkill.

I've been so slammed with work that I haven't been keeping up properly. But I noted yesterday that McCain is still pushing the "Obama's just like Bush; he doesn't learn from his mistakes" line that broke all of America up in guffaws the other night. Is it possible that the McCain-Palin campaign is taking its risible "We're reformers" line and purposely trying to push it farther into "We're change and freshness and new ideas"?

Given that the swipe at Biden's age was written into her stump speech by the McCain people, I don't think Palin's going off on her own here. This really may be the campaign's latest hilarious "strategy." By Friday, it'll be something else.

This isn't a mistake on Palin's part. It's a conscious strategy. The McCain campaign has decided that their best hope at winning comes from large numbers of thoroughly confused voters. So they are doing their best to increase the confusion.

I'm predicting that McCain ads will start saying that Obama is too old to be President, and that the country is not ready for Joe Biden to become the first female vice-president.

Palin said they were concentrating on Obama and Biden's records and positions, not McCain's. I look for the debate to be nothing but attacks from Palin.

I sometimes feel as if Palin's candidacy is some kind of satirical performance art, and I'm just not in on the joke.

Haven't you ever seen The Office?

This woman trumps Bush in lack of self-reflection and power hunger. She doesn't get the broader dynamics at play because she doesn't reflect and, as far as she is concerned, she is running for the presidency.

And yes, she is fine with a 16 year old who was impregnated by her father carrying the child to term. She is a stone freak.

"Change vs More of the Same"

It's like doublespeak deja vu.

Perhaps she saw that headline on some nameless front page somewhere, but she definitely never read the article.

Steve has it about right, McCain/Palin is a kind of performance art.

Most of the informed electorate is missing the point: the republicans are running symbols, not people whose ideas matter. Approx. 45% of voters will choose the McCain/Palin set of symbols over the Obama/Biden. McCaPalin is not about facts, logic, or rational thinking.

Oh she reads all those papers, she just doesn't understand them (a la Otto in "A Fish Called Wanda" and philosophy).

I had a thought this morning: What if the McCain/Palin campaign crashes and burns and Palin decides to write a tell-all about how the McRove tried to manipulate her by programming her with lies and what have you? She could reinvent herself as a double mavericky Independent through the best path out of there. It's a thought. People would eat that shit up. Hell, Fox would want to wash itself McCain for starters.

One can hope for the McCain and Republicans to crash and burn anyway.

I sometimes feel as if Palin's candidacy is some kind of satirical performance art, and I'm just not in on the joke.

I've been saying for weeks that Sarah Palin is really an extended Andy Kaufman-esque prank we're just not getting.

I sometimes feel as if Palin's candidacy is some kind of satirical performance art, and I'm just not in on the joke.

I've been saying for weeks that Sarah Palin is really an extended Andy Kaufman-esque prank we're just not getting.

"I don't have a debate coach. I have quite a few people who are giving us information about the record of Obama and Biden. " Then what would that picture of you standing by the stream with a stand in be? You know the one released by your campaign. Oh I see not being coached or practiced , just wanted to see how you looked behind the podium did we? The woman has moose balls , not afraid to lie rght to your face.

Reading everyone's comments I'm reminded of a documentary film, that I can't remember the name of to save my life right now, that was about failed national leaders, tyrants, dictators, etc., that were interviewed years after their downfalls. The gist of the interviews was that even when the facts and reality of their failures were well proven, they all were in a state of denial that they were somehow responsible for the incredible suffering that they caused. I see the same characteristics with all authoritarian types like Palin or Bush. They don't need any answers to complex problems. They don't have to answer to anyone but themselves. And they are so cocksure of their own limitless abilities they sure as hell don't need advice.

All satire aside...
Alex Kirby gets at it here:

This woman trumps Bush in lack of self-reflection and power hunger. She doesn't get the broader dynamics at play because she doesn't reflect and, as far as she is concerned, she is running for the presidency.

This is exactly right.

And along that arc:
Does anybody have a link to the recent scientific paper that showed that a certain combination of low intelligence and high confidence leads to the absurd certainties we find in Palin/Bush type personalities? We need to give that paper a careful read. It goes a long way to explain the reactionary software uploaded into Caribou Barbie's noggin.

Couric got paWned, that was Tina Fey. Free Sarah Palin!

I sometimes feel as if Palin's candidacy is some kind of satirical performance art, and I'm just not in on the joke.

I hear if you give yourself to Jesus and begin to believe in the literal truth of every word of the Bible, the punchline appears to you in a vision.

>"While rational people can see through this mess, Palin and McCain do not care."

Rational humans are few and far between. Politicians figured this out long ago. This fellow explained it pretty well.

"It is good for the leaders that men do not think"

-- Adolf Hitler ca 1934

isn't it interesting that todd palin has not been allowed out either? all of the other candidates' spouses stump and do interviews.

I still don't know what Todd Palin sounds like--does he have that same accent? Considering what the likely questions would be, I can understand why he's being shieled as well.

The republican spinmasters are going to have to dig a very deep trench to lower the bar far enough for Palin to get over it. Visualize a trench 1 foot wide and deep as the Grand Canyon. And she still might screw it up.

Suggested post-debate spin- "In her years in ofice, Sarah Palin has neither eaten any human babies nor endorsed Adolph Hitler."

I don't have a debate coach.

She's winging it, you liberal haters!

I'm reminded of the great Mose Allison:

You know if silence was golden
You couldn't raise a dime
Because your mind is on vacation
And your mouth is workin' overtime

> > A: I cut your arm off!
> > L: No you didn’t!
> > A: What’s that, then?
> > L: Just a flesh wound

Please stop lowering expectations for this woman. She did well in the gubernatorial debates.

Hilarious debate "coach" post over at Kleiman's place:

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/10/some_advice_for_sarah_palin.php

In answer to your question - although each mentions McCain at some point, I think it's clear that she is talking almost exclusively about herself and Biden - Biden = experience and herself = new, energy. The fact that this answer is completely unresponsive to the question is mainly why it seems unclear.

Just more "up-is-down" campaign spin from the McLunatics

The Republican brand is so toxic that McCain and Palin are pretending to be knockoff-brand Democrats.

I noticed this with McCain's ad in Texas (of all places). He boasted of taking on big oil, big business, pharmaceutical industry...reform. It easily could have been a Democratic ad.

For koreyel @ 9:49:

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Micheline: Please stop lowering expectations for this woman. She did well in the gubernatorial debates.

I thought this way also, until this morning.
I am now of a different mind. If anything I believe the bar has been raised for her. Here's why:

The interviews and ensuing parodies have shown her to be a nitwit and a bullshit artist. That's how she is viewed by those outside the base. Every answer she gives will be evaluated against that context. Since she only knows bullshit, I suspect the bar is un-leap-able.

Regarding the Palin debates in Alaska: This isn't Dogpatch anymore. Wasilla is filled with Texas and Oklahoma republican transplants. Not the greatest batch of critical thinkers ever assembled. Alaska as a whole is ridiculously republican. Winning a debate up there is one thing. Snowing the country as a whole with her brand of fluff... is another.

Of course I could be utterly wrong.
Just by current take right now.

Dunning-Kruger Effect....

Perfect. Thanks. It is going in my permanent memory banks.

Starting to think that McCain is taking a dive.

"You won't let me pick Lieberman? Then FUCK ALL OF YOU!"

I think that's pretty much the situation he is in.

WTG!

I think Palin's strategy of "More of the same" vs. "New energy and ideas" will be a winner...for somebody.

Please stop lowering expectations for this woman. She did well in the gubernatorial debates. -Micheline

There is a canyon of difference between Alaskan state issues and US federal issues. Not to mention a slightly different level of pressure.

At a certain point, the expectations are so low that any decent response will be seen as insincere, canned and fed to her, and not her own.

I believe we reached that about a week ago.

She cannot win this debate. Too bad I won't be able to watch it and live blog it with y'all like last Friday.

Off topic sort of:

http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2008/09/saradise-lost-chapter-ninety-eight.html

Oh my...Looks like the troopergate may be heating up. Here's the killer quote:

An Alaska woman who owns a company that processes workers’ compensation claims in the state has told an independent investigator that she was urged by the office of Gov. Sarah Palin to deny a benefits claim for Palin’s ex brother-in-law, a state trooper who was involved in an ugly divorce and child custody dispute with Palin’s sister, despite evidence that the claim appeared to be legitimate, according to state officials who were briefed about the conversation.

Murlene Wilkes, the proprietor of Harbor Adjusting Services in Anchorage, had originally denied that she was pressured by Gov. Palin’s office to deny state trooper Mike Wooten’s claim for workers compensation benefits.

Palin is as dense as the center of the sun and as shallow as a spritz of Pam.

Um. When we think about, isn't American democracy itself rather like performance art?

On the other hand, Biden's ridiculous gaffes seem less disturbing when compared to Palin's recent interviews. I agree that she is definitely the life imitates art candidate.

Palin doesn't understand that the election isn't about her. She's been the darling of the base and much of the media since she was tapped for VP. She's living on the fumes of the rock concert atmosphere of the Republican Convention.

I think Palin thinks she will be president soon after McCain kicks the bucket. She has repeatedly referred to the ticket as Palin/McCain and not the other way around. In her mind, since McCain will probably die in office, she thinks people are voting for her with McCain as a placeholder.

...at the end of the day, though, it is -- it's so clear, again, what those choices are.

Really? If you gave me a million dollars and 24 hours, I could not tell you whether McPalin supports the bailout, whether they support shifting resources from Iraq to Afghanistan, what their position is on Independence from Oil, Climate crisis solutions, reproductive rights, rape kits, fannie and freddie, wallstreet regulation - nothing. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEIR POSITION IS ON ANYTHING!

Palin will not have to study up on Biden - she remembers his speeches from when she was in the second grade. Just by way of trivia, when Sarah Palin was in the second grade, John McCain was 35. That kind of pegs the creep-o-meter for me.

"I sometimes feel as if Palin's candidacy is some kind of satirical performance art, and I'm just not in on the joke." EXACTLY! It is so unbelievable. And people like Bay Something on CNN defending her...I feel like I've fallen through the looking glass...

There is all the proof you need that she was lying when she said she read everything she could get her hands on. ( but couldn't name one) There are photos of her and Randy Scheunemann staging mock debates with podiums and everything on the internets and in the papers.