Calin is a punt.

First, I'm not sure whether Palin has some kind of reading-comprehension problem...

I'm sure you know this narrative is being spoon-fed to Palin. Her shortcomings have little to do with it, except to the extent that they effect how she regurgitates the talking points. Her target audience is dim-witted uncommitted voters.

Look, you think 'reality' is some sort of pure thing, like the element of hydrogen on the periodic table. It's not. Reality is the sum of people's perceptions.

And if you can get enough people to believe what you want them to believe, that's reality. We found WMD in Iraq. The US doesn't torture. The entire US - no, the whole WORLD's economy is rescued by a $700 billion bailout. Obama is a Muslim. Etc.

Brokaw treated the Ayers issues a serious attack, he never mentioned that the article says ther "do not appear to have been close."
Stephanopoulos is letting Pawlenty and Martinez throw the same mud.

"which [the New York Times] is never wrong" is clearly a dog whistle. Those for whom this message is intended will understand exactly what she means.

Cranky

I saw that same shit with Broke-Caw. That McCain whore should be exported to FAUX News.

Does Palin have attention deficit disorder? It would explain a lot of her behavior.

There's nothing more disappointing to the media than a huge Obama swing right now. It's no longer a horse race, so of course they're going to spice things up with this issue.

Sarah Palin at every remaining campaign stop until the election: newspapers *wink* Ayers *wink* Rev. Wright *wink* Obama bad *wink* the economy...ooops! Forget I mentioned that *wink*

Pathetic.

I didn't hear her speech but when I read it, the smarmy Palin voice in my head pronounced the line with those audible air-quotes around it and a pause before an emphasized "ever". As though she was being -- air quotes again -- "ironic".

That said, why she would take another dig at the "msm" in precisely the same paragraph she was using the "msm" as a source for her slander, well, it's hard to say what was going through her little head.

Wasn't Brokaw an "ambassador" to the McCain/Palin campaign to assure them that NBC would treat them "fairly" after McCain/Palin complained about Olbermann/Maddow?

The question which comes to my mind is: is this the first time she's heard of this connection? She talks about it like it was news.

anonymous guy on the internet said:

Reality is the sum of people's perceptions.

Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. - Obi-Wan Kenobi, Return of the Jedi

Steve, there you go again expecting truth in the phony, fraudulent McCain/Palin campaign. Don't you realize that American voters can't handle the truth?

I can't read anything about Palin without substituting Tina Fey's Palin character in her place. It makes it so much funnier.

What else would you expect from McCain/Palin? They can't run on their records. They sure as hell can't run on Bush's record. So they can't run on the past. They can't run on the future. McCain's economic plans, such as they are, are recycled G.W. Bush. His health care plan is ludicrous.
Good Republicans that they are, McCain/Palin fall back on tearing down their opponent. It's because they have nothing about themselves to build up.

I can't read anything about Palin without substituting Tina Fey's Palin character in her place. It makes it so much funnier.

Tina Fey's Palin is sweeter and less mean-spirited than the real Palin.

The Republicans are living in a fog of fantasy and myth of their own making. The GOP guy who made the remark a couple years ago about Democrats inhabiting a "reality-based" world had no idea how prescient he was.

Not to rain on the parade, but Palin's line about the NYT being "hardly ever wrong" was said with her characteristic crushing dose of sarcasm. It reads badly in print, but the replay shows that she is clearly mugging for her NYT-hating audience, not saying that the Times is somehow right about a lot of things. C'mon, Steve...you have to be able to decode Palinspeak a little better. Do you have a 4 year-old around to help?

Steve, haven't you realized yet that literally everything she says is either incoherent or a lie. She really is unique. Other politicians have been frequent liars (McCarthy, Nixon, GHWBush, McCain) but their lies were tactical. She seems to lie automatically, whether she needs to or not and it doesn't seem to matter if she's called on them.

I've seen another blog this morning jump on this as well. I expect that Palin's sarcasm comes through more strongly in the hearing than the reading. My translation would be that "even the NYT, totally in the tank for Obama, says that he associates with terrorists." It's snarky from the outset, as she makes a point of talking about reading "my copy" of the NYTimes. Perhaps she got one of those half off for the first six weeks of delivery deals.

At any rate I think it's a mistake to imagine she was actually endorsing the paper's general accuracy. It's a two-fer: a backhanded slap at the MSM and a smear on Obama all in one go.

The shortsightedness that is trademark of Bush republicans is being so explicitly demonstrated by the McCain campaign's daily lurch is astounding and nothing short of frightening.

Having slowly been exposed over the past eight years leads one to question why and how the McCain campaign doesn't know how obvious it is.

Going forward, with just one month remaining and little to base itself on, the McCain campaign is moving full steam ahead with a day to day 'Cry Wolf' strategy?

John McCain is getting punked.

He picked Palin, elevated her to a national figure, and now she's stabbing him in the back and tanking his campaign.

Because she's got her eye on 2012.

The first order of business was to convince people she actually reads newspapers, because that's what a vice-president is supposed to do, apparently.

'Yup, the New York Times, you betcha, and, doggone it, the Washington Lamppost and the Economizer...'

Then it was 'Obama and his terrorist best buddy!' Wink, wink. 'Wow!'

Her calculatedly -- by someone else, presumably, but she seems to enjoy this kind of thing -- disrespectful tone in referring to Senator Obama as "Barack" even though she doesn't know him personally (as Senators Biden, McCain, and Obama know each other) needs to be addressed somehow. Obama himself can't do it, of course, and it's hard to think of a way to do it without coming across as over-sensitive -- this is the same problem with the "Democrat" Party bit -- but they're smart guys and should get someone out there pushing the "rude and unpleasant" meme on this, uhm, piece of work.

Interesting that she now uses Obama's first name when discussing him. (Does Barack rhyme with Eye-raq? Muslim, anyone?)

Don't be surprised if Obama's middle name makes a surprise appearance at some Palin event.

I want to see the ad that asks: when a MCCain/Palin administration get that 3 a.m. call, what will Sarah reach for first...the phone or the Estee Lauder?

So she's being sarcastic about the accuracy of the source she's citing to prove Obama's connection to Ayers, but the source she's sarcastically citing actually says Obama has no connection to Ayers, which means she thinks the source is actually WRONG about the lack of a connection between Obama and Ayers, so her citation is actually oh no I've gone cross-eyed.

Palin's will to power is not matched by personal political shrewdness. Obviously she only stains herself by trying to smear the most popular figure in American culture. She has got both hands in the nightsoil now. She is growing smaller by the moment.

Think about it: The republicans have her playing the role of a divider. How cool is that? If she is the future of the party this is the wrong role at the wrong time with more of the same wrong message. They aren't astute enough to realize that she isn't just attacking Barack; but rather, millions of families that have contributed time and money to his cause. This is a bankrupt path.

Pay out more rope please! Splash a little gasoline about. Let's watch them swing and burn themselves and her in effigy...

Okay, she's being sarcastic about Barack and the terrorists. But it could be possible that no one in the McCain campaign told her they were leaving Michigan. If you caught the video of her talking about that on Fri morning (with the awesome Gateway Arch in the background) she said "when I read about it this morning..." and added she and Todd would love to hang out in Michigan and talk about Maverick McCain, doggone it.

Okay, she's being sarcastic about the NYTimes. But it does seem like no one told her the campaign was leaving Michigan. If you caught the video of her on Friday morning, she said "when I read about it this morning..." and added that she thought it was too bad, that Todd would love to go to Michigan and talk about the maverickey maverickness of McCain, doggone it.

Sarah Palin talks and talks and avoid the questions. As the Bamilekes of Cameroon say, “A woman’s strength is a multitude of words.�
Guy at http://guyblaise.com/

It's not so much the left and right hands don't know what the other is doing, but they have so much pandering they have to stuff into such a short amount of time that they have to say two different things at once.

Hmmm...didn't you borrow that "right hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" line from a cartoon in the latest New Yorker?

Sometimes, watching these guys, it's hard not to get the sense that the right hand doesn't know what the further-right hand is doing.

Nor does the right hand CARE what the further-right hand is doing. Its all lies anyway. What difference does it make?

I saw the clip on the news. When Palin was actually able to name a newspaper, the crowd cheered. Talk about your lowered expectations.

How about it -- what if we use Palin as a fund raising tool?

Send send the Obama campaign $10 every time Palin opens her fat, dumb mouth about Ayers, Rezko and Wright.

I'm in for $20 in the last two days. This could be a winner for Obama.

This was clearly an attempt to paint Palin as a serious newspaper reader after she couldn't name any papers she read. The only thing that surprises me is that they didn't manage to get the name "Ahmadenijad" into her talking point.

Calling Obama and Biden "Barack" and "Joe" is just part of her gollygeewillikers gosh durn downhome doggone gen-u-wine just folks-ness, silly elitists.

Does the McCain camp really want to get into the question of "prior associations?" I see nothing in the "hardly ever wrong" New york Times that matches the same New York Times' description (published January 5, 1991) of John McCain's close friendship to Charles Keating.

The sharpest questioning today was from Mr. Heflin, who interrogated Mr. McCain about his late payments to the American Continental Corporation, Mr. Keating's Arizona holding company, for flights he and his family took on the company's corporate aircraft from 1983 to 1986.

Mr. McCain, who of the five Senators was the closest socially to Mr. Keating, would travel with the businessman to his vacation home in the Bahamas, where they swam, snorkeled and went fishing. But he did not repay more than $13,000 to American Continental until 1989, when he said the company notified him that the bill was due. [Snip]

Under questioning by Mr. Bennett, Mr. McCain said it had never occurred to him that it would seem improper for a lawmaker to have such a close personal relationship with a major political supporter with a matter pending before Federal savings and loan regulators. Politics and Friendship

"I don't think being in political office precludes me from having friends," he said.

The relationship is described in Wikipedia like this:

McCain's wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family, and their baby-sitter had made nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard Keating's jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain did not pay Keating (in the amount of $13,433) for some of the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln.[7][33]

In Palin's defense, she only read the NY Times as part of reading ALL newspapers and magazines in the world, like she does all the time. So I'm impressed that she even found the article.

It's important to remember that that conservative chip-on-the-shoulder about the liberal media is a win-win situation for them. If the news is unpleasant for conservatives, it's obviously liberal bias. If the news is uncomfortable for liberals, it must be doubly true -- after all, even the liberals at the Times can't hide the story! I watched that approach evolve for years; her comments about the Times, if taken as sarcasm, are simply a way of saying "If the Times admits it, there's no denying it!"

It's a nice trick, that sort of utterly insulated view of the world.

JM and Jean Arf, above, have noted the casual way in which Palin refers to Senator Obama, but the reason is not so simple. This is an old psychological ploy, used to devalue one candidate while elevating the other, and you can bet this is being fed to her as well. I don't think I've ever heard her refer to McCain as "John" - it's always, "Senator McCain, the Maverick", blah blah. It has nothing to do with folksiness, although she tries to project that as well, but everything to do with making Obama seem less a personage than the glittering Senator John McCain. Given the American voters' alleged preference for a common man who is more like themselves, this seems a risky tactic; she risks making McCain look like the elitist.

As to her abrupt and puzzling reversals - such as when she candidly identified herself as "Pro-Life", but then appeared to support the core principle of Roe v Wade; the individual's right to choose - this stems from an inability to reconcile the irreconcilable. The Right takes such extreme and nutty positions that when she is asked a question on a subject about which she knows little, she naturally opts for the position a reasonable person would choose. If asked whether she supports an individual's right to choose, she wants to appear to be all about rights, which is the reasonable choice. Unfortunately, the Righties are often unreasonable.

Her mission objectives:

1. Be quoted naming an actual newspaper she "reads", to repair damage from the Couric stumble. Check.

2. Spread meme that Obama hangs with terrorists. Check.

What, you want her to be able to do all that AND make sense, AND be consistent with all the other messages in the campaign? What are you, some kind of genius? She's just a reglar joe-sixpack-hockey-mom and you want her to, like, actually be a competent politician? You elitist!

I agree the "Barack" vs. "Senator McCain" is a ploy to make one candidate serious and authoritative, and the other inconsequential and (bonus) foreign. But if she's called on it? Well, gee whiz shucks golly durn it, that's just how us plain folks up in the northernmost outpost of the heartland talk to each other, we're just real super duper friendly don'tcha know!

You have an appointment? What? Yes look at the time and date in your taskbar right now? There are so many days or even moments to when your appointment happens?
It is appointed for man to die once and after this comes judgment, Heb 9:27.
Are you ready for your appointment? If you put off the decision to when your appointment happens then will you be in for a big surprise of your life, or should I say your soul. What decision, the decision to call on Jesus to save you? You and I have a problem called sin. We can either face God with our sin or we can have a substitute in our place? Jesus can be your substitute for you. Jesus can be your sin bearer. You may ask why? For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Jesus left heaven and came down to earth because of our sin problem to save you. Jesus died on the cross for the penalty of our sins.
Will you let him save you by calling out to him?
Your response is your responsibility.
The promise can only be yours if you tell God that Jesus died for you and that God hath raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You have the opportunity to call on Jesus to save you. here and now! Do you want to face God with your sins or do you want it known there and now between you and God that you accepted his love expressed through his son Jesus!

www.shipwrecksoul.blogspot.com

You have an appointment? What? Yes look at the time and date in your taskbar right now? There are so many days or even moments to when your appointment happens?
It is appointed for man to die once and after this comes judgment, Heb 9:27.
Are you ready for your appointment? If you put off the decision to when your appointment happens then will you be in for a big surprise of your life, or should I say your soul. What decision, the decision to call on Jesus to save you? You and I have a problem called sin. We can either face God with our sin or we can have a substitute in our place? Jesus can be your substitute for you. Jesus can be your sin bearer. You may ask why? For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Jesus left heaven and came down to earth because of our sin problem to save you. Jesus died on the cross for the penalty of our sins.
Will you let him save you by calling out to him?
Your response is your responsibility.
The promise can only be yours if you tell God that Jesus died for you and that God hath raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You have the opportunity to call on Jesus to save you. here and now! Do you want to face God with your sins or do you want it known there and now between you and God that you accepted his love expressed through his son Jesus!

www.shipwrecksoul.blogspot.com

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If Palin's intention was to be sarcastic, she was stepping on her own argument, within the same sentence.

I don't think she was making an argument, I think she was mixing together fragments of ideas designed to produce emotional responses and association and the sentence structure was merely decorative. What she was communicating amounts to something like:

"Obama! Ayers! Liberal NY Times! Terrorism! 9/11!"

I just saw a video clip of this Carson quote on CNN, and then found another sourced to the AP on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi3oP74kMjA

I didn't hear Palin say "and they are hardly ever wrong" in either. I'm not remotely a McCain supporter, but want to know how this aside got injected to the quote. I imagine the New York Times will issue a correction, qualifying it as an editorial comment, not an authentic part of Palin's quote.

How funny is it that almost everybody here is confused by what Palin says? If we're this puzzled, what do you think regular Joe voters out there are thinking?

If I had to guess, this was Palin's attempt at bizarre logic. The article basically dismisses the idea that there is any connection between Ayers and Obama, which makes the NYT ripe for attack in the Republican playbook because it crushes one of their talking points. So our lovely Gov. Soccer Mom is trying to surface the Ayers connection while undercutting the NYT article that states there is no connection.

I don't know... her mind is mush, so I don't think anyone sane can really say for sure what the little cartoons in her head actually mean.

I commented last pointing out that the video of the Carson event didn't include the 'and they are hardly ever wrong' clause in Palin's reference to the NYT. My mistake. The Time's quote is from a different event, in Englewood, Colorado. Can't find youtube of that, but it makes sense for her handlers to have struck that bit from her note cards between appearances in Colorado and California.

If Palin's intention was to be sarcastic, she was stepping on her own argument, within the same sentence. That seems unlikely.

You sorely underestimate the ability of Republicans to contradict themselves within the same sentence. When you trying to get people to sign on to a policy platform that makes no coherent sense, a talent for self-contradiction is a feature, not a bug.

Loved the "right hand....further-right hand" line.

"If Palin's intention was to be sarcastic, she was stepping on her own argument, within the same sentence. That seems unlikely."

I'm not sure how to interpret her words. We know that reality is irrelevant to her beliefs and her claims, and we've seen her contradict McCain's message and even her own stands between sentences, so I'm unclear why accomplishing a self-contradiction within a single sentence should be so unlikely.

She has lately taken pains to claim that she reads newspapers. She might well have skimmed the Times so that she could refer to something in order to demonstrate reading a paper, and she could have noticed that Obama and Ayers were mentioned in the same article. She probably didn't actually read the article (we know she has no patience for details that don't interest her, and besides she got the key detail wrong). She might have been meandering along in her interview in general pursuit of the twin goals of (a) lying about reading the Times and (b) slurring Obama & Ayers, and simply ran into a little dissonance over trying to bolster both of her fibs versus reflexively slurring the nasty liberal media, so it came out strange.

MEDIA BIAS ROBS AMERICANS OF THE TRUTH
... NOW, AP IS UNFARILY PLAYING THE RACE CARD ...
The media’s continual bias in favor of Obama is not only disgusing, it’s against everything that America, a Free Press, and Freedom of Speech stands for. To suggest that there is no media bias in favor of Obama not only robs Americans of the truth, it insults the intelligence of the American people.
TALK IS CHEAP … CHECK OBAMA’S RECORD !!!
A candidate’s track record, and associations are always a legitimate issue when running for President. Let’s take a look at the qualifications, judgement, and experience of Obama, who is running for President. Obama had 25 years to fulfill the potential he displayed as a rising start at Harvard Law School … and, how did he live up to that potential? … He chose to align himself with anti-American racist, Jeremiah Wright for TWENTY YEARS … along with Ferrahkan, Rezko, Ayers, and others. As a community organizer, he registered thousands of voters in Chicago … then, when he ran for the state legislature, he took away their votes, by disqualifying his opponent (a black woman) on a technicality. As a U.S. Senator, he voted present 160 times … he never called a meeting on the Afghanistan committee he chaired (although he NOW says we must shift all our military from Iraq to Afghanistan). He claimed Foreign Policy experience from a 9 day whirlwind photo op to 6 countries. And, he spent almost half of his tenure neglecting his responsibilities as a U.S. Senator, so he could run for President. Senator McCain served America honorably for 22 years in the military. He proved his love for America, as well as his honor, integrity and character, by refusing early release as a P.O.W., even while being tortured. He served America as a ‘contributing’ U.S. Senator, working across the aisle, for 20 years. If Obama’s Twentyfive year track record shows he lacks judgement, and can’t be trusted, who cares what he says about Health Care and the Economy! What Obama never learned is Character. He simply can’t be trusted … ask Jeremiah Wright, a friend of 20 years, who Obama betrayed for personal ambition … and, you Obama supporters really think he won’t betray you If he gets elected??? If he gets elected, you Obama supporters will be facing a HUGE disillusionment !!!

"McCain did not pay Keating (in the amount of $13,433) for some of the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln.[7][33]"
Posted by: Rick B on October 5, 2008

This makes me wonder if there are senators who might have a similar problem with regard to Wall Street banks in trouble over our recent/current financial crisis.

I think what Palin's talking points here suggest are:

"Even the NYT, which is a far-left pro-Obama propoganda outlet, ran a piece about Ayers. So that, er, must mean something, right? Even the newspaper that those filthy liberals love ran something about Ayers. Ignore what the article actually says; it had Ayers in it, and that's all that should matter to you morons."

It doesn't matter that this is all a giant pile of horseshit, and that none of it hangs together logically or factually. It hits the notes (NYT is bad, Ayers is bad, Obama is bad), and that's all that matters. The fact that it makes no sense whatsoever is an "elitist" concern.

Howard - that sure is an impressively long list of things you don't seem to understand anything about.

Palin thinks people are stupid enough to forget how stupid she is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHLTKwshxfs