By Steven L. Taylor
There are a great number of stories out today about trouble in the McCain-Palin campaign about Palin herself, and I do not have time at the moment to sort through all of it (more sorting later, I suspect). Part of this is typical fallout from a loss, and the commensurate finger-pointing and rear-end-covering that normally ensues. Part of it, however, is a lot of people getting to be honest about Palin now that such honesty cannot hurt McCain’s presidential bid.
Here’s an interesting bit of video from Fox News. According to the report Palin didn’t know that Africa was a continent (she thought it was a country) and that she didn’t know which countries were in NAFTA, amongst other things. The report also confirms what I and others argued from the beginning: the McCain folks did not properly vet Palin.
I do note that Cameron is still trying to push the notion that Obama won because of the financial crisis, although Smith counters that the rise in Obama’s numbers started before the crisis started. Indeed, while one suspects that the race would have been tighter sans the financial crisis, the notion that the was the most decisive factor in the race overlooks the totality of the campaign–going back even before the nominees were known. As George Will noted on This Week this past Sunday regarding the financial crisis hypothesis, McCain-Palin received a bounce after the convention (a very normal outcome, btw) and the thing about bounces is that you go up and then come back down.
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The views expressed in the comments are the sole responsibility of the person leaving those comments. They do not reflect the opinion of the author of PoliBlog, nor have they been vetted by the author.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Hehe, I have to admit that I found this clip quite hilarious and a little surprising.
It seems the Couric interview may have only been the tip of the iceberg…. an iceberg that may or may not be melting due to man’s activities.
November 6th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I think it best to keep your powder dry on this. There are any number of reasons why individuals may try to save their own hides by sacrificing hers in the aftermath of the election. The Africa thing seems a little over the top and has me doubting the whether this is all truthful or if it is largely post-loss scapegoating. It certainly feeds a convenient narrative that the Couric interview created, which she no doubt bears a great deal of responsibility for.
But doesn’t it seem a little inconsistent that someone who is now being portrayed as such a “rube” could be an effective governor?
November 6th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
The Africa thing is worth a pause, I agree. But as I said over in a comment at OTB:
In all candor, the notion that a rube can get elected governor hardly strains credulity.
I do think that Palin is intelligent. I also think that she has not thought much about the world outside of Alaska.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Wow.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call her un-intelligent, even if I didn’t like her. While I find it quite plausible for an imbecile to be elected to a high office, I find it implausible for said imbecile to succeed at that office in any meaningful way.
I guess we can go back to arguing about whether Palin has been a successful governor/mayor/councilperson or whether she just got lucky an awful lot, but the idea that she was just lucky requires a leap of faith and not one of logic. I’m not willing to take that leap.
I’m sure you know that there are many types of intelligence, and also that a lack of knowledge is not the same thing as a lack of intelligence.
I mean, I have a very high IQ, but there are things I know very little about. I don’t know anything about politics in Cambodia. I can’t name the president of Algiers (actually, I don’t even know if Algiers has a president, or if it’s goverment is configured some other way). And even if I didn’t know where Ohio was, it wouldn’t necessarily change my IQ. I could be a very intelligent person and just not have ever been exposed to that information.
All that said, I’m not sure that I believe this stuff. I’ve been through some of the public records that are available through open records laws that detail how Palin handled herself as a mayor, as an activist, and as a governor. I can honestly say that I would not have been as successful as she was, in the areas in which she was succesful. In fact, I’d have been totally lost. She clearly excels in some areas, and is deficient in others; but I find it hard to believe that someone who had a very clear grasp (and in my humble opinion the public record very clearly supports this claim) of what was wrong and right about the state of Alaska’s relationship to oil corporations is such a dunce that she doesn’t know Africa is a continent. Even if I didn’t like Palin - and I’ll admit I do, so I have some bias - I wouldn’t believe that.
Yeah, a dunny can get elected. But Palin has been successful at what she’s done; if she was an imbecile I don’t think that would have been possible. Succes doesn’t generally happen “accidentally”, especially when you have very powerful and wealthy interests (the oil magnates of Alaska) in the picture.
Line her strengths up against her weaknesses, and I’m willing to call her a lot of things - even a poor choice for VP - but unintelligent?
I think that’s something the far left blogosphere might say out of malice, but I’m really surprised to learn that you feel that way for real.
.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
You said:
and
I am confused, as I wrote:
Perhaps you misread what I wrote?
I did a search on “un-intelligent” on the page to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, but yours is the first usage on the page.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
With a Bachelors in Journalism I find it hard to believe she doesn’t know about Africa or the countries in NAFTA (hint: you can count all the countries in NAFTA on one hand, even if you’re missing two fingers). In fact, since Alaska borders Canada, I would suspect that NAFTA has had a big effect on the Alaskan economy.
I also have no idea how this “proves” the McCain camp didn’t vet Palin. This sounds more like staffers trying to say the loss was not their fault. That would only prove that the McCain camp didn’t vet its own staffers all that well.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Yes, actually I did misread what you wrote, and I tried to change my comment when I realized my mistake. To my dismay I found that I was not able to do so, and so there it is, an embarassing gaffe on my part, which I would erase from your blog if I could because it is entirely based on a misreading; where you wrote “I do think Palin is intelligent” my brain, probably because of some internal bias mechanism, saw “I do NOT think Palin is intelligent.” The response I left was based almost entirely on that misreading.
I am sorry for it, and like I said, would erase it if I could. “My bad,” if you will.
On a technical note, I used the “change comment” option on your blog, and it appeared that the comment change was accepted last night - but when I looked again today, it was back in its original form.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
a side note -
I’m totally willing to take responsibility for the things that come out of my mouth (or keyboard.) I should have read more carefully and not made a knee-jerk reaction.
My fault. Again, I’m sorry about it.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Hey, remember when Obama said there were 57 states? …
November 7th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
No worries. I figured you must have misread it.
There was some weirdness with your post and I had restored it before reading it.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Max,
Yes, I do, although everyone makes verbal gaffes. Indeed, as I stated in the comment above, my guess is that the Africa thing may have been a verbal gaffe that a staffer has leaked.
Of course, in Palin’s case, the other evidence (the Gibson interview, the Couric interview) make these claims plausible.
In regards to 57 states, it is worth noting that it was in the context of the primary and caucus process, where there are, for the Dems, more than 50 contests–American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Americans Abroad, DC, and the Virgina Island are added to the 50 states (that’s 6) and I can’t remember if one of the Dem states has a caucus and a priamary (seems like one does), so the 57 thing isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds.
Beyond any of that, everyone makes mistakes. I have no doubt written and goodness knows, said, any number of things that were wrong or potentially embarrassing.
The issue with Palin is the preponderance of the evidence suggest that she has not thought about much outside of Alaska. That doesn’t make her stupid or a bad person. It does, however, make a lousy pick for VP.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
The issue with Palin, so far as I can see, is that the Left has lost its BS detector pretty spectacularly.
From the “whose baby is it anyway?” screed to “she isn’t familiar with NAFTA, even though she just finished taking bids from Canadian companies to build a big honking pipeline” the argument seems to be “since some people badmouth her she must not be fit for president.”
I would submit that her bad interviews were no worse than Biden’s “Hillary would have made a better VP,” “a vote for Obama is a vote for an international crisis, and at first it won’t look like we’re handling it correctly,” “we support clean coal for China but not the US” or “if only people had listened to me back when we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, even though Lebanon is a Hezbollah puppet state” comments. But somehow the one story gets picked up and the other story gets buried.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
The baby stuff was ridiculous–we can agree on that.
However, I hardly qualify as “the Left” (nor Joyner at OTB or Kathleen Parker or David Frum or any number of other folks) and I found her to be clearly unprepared.
I am not here to defend Biden, and will agree with you over the Hezbollah/Lebanon thing, which I still don’t understand (and blogged about it here), but it really is rather difficult to make a serious case that Biden hasn’t spent time thinking about these things, or that he isn’t knowledgeable about them. Likewise, it is very difficult to make the case that Palin has.
Biden talks too much and has said a number of ridiculous things. One may think he shouldn’t have been chosen. All fair enough. I think it is difficult, regardless, to say that Palin is in his class in terms of exposure to the major policy issues of the day. It is simply no contest.
And I, personally, have tried to make the case as to why I don’t think she’s fit, but I know you probably haven’t read all of those posts, as I seem to recall you accusing me of being deranged on the subject
I honestly do not know how one can watch her interviews and feel good about the idea of her being the president.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
> The baby stuff was ridiculous–we can agree on that.
Maybe I can get one more point of agreement, if Palin’s supposed membership in a radical Alaskan political party reflected badly on her — even if not true — would Obama’s documented association with a radical Chicago political party reflect badly on him, or is it just evidence he has an open mind? ( http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/09/the-irony-of-obama-and-the-new-party-association/ )
> However, I hardly qualify as “the Left”
Yes, you’ve admitted you don’t believe the more outrageous things, even if you do use them to support your beliefs about Palin.
> and I found her to be clearly unprepared
I recognize I’m not going to convince you on this point. Yes, I did accuse you of being somewhat deranged on the subject, although the rest of your commentary is still good. I have a feeling that her trouble — especially in the earlier interviews — stemmed from being in a supporting role on the ticket, meaning that her answers could not contradict McCain’s, and as much as possible needed to reinforce McCain’s. If she had been in her normal lead role, I have a feeling — yes, an unsupported feeling — that she would have done much better.
Let’s look at the Supreme Court ruling question. Yes, she froze up and could not name a single ruling she disagreed with, but was that because she didn’t remember actually filing an amicus brief in a Supreme Court case earlier this year that her side later lost — which would count as a ruling she disagrees with ( http://gov.state.ak.us/archive-12273.html ) — or because she was trying to remember the list of safe cases McCain’s staff recommended to her? If she had referred to Exxon v. Baker, of course it would be used against her as siding with Big Oil — so it’s a political non-starter. She probably had a few “safe” cases to discuss, like say Kelo, that she couldn’t remember the names of at the moment.
> The issue with Palin is the preponderance of the evidence suggest that she has not thought about much outside of Alaska.
Remember back when Obama’s foreign policy credentials were “I went on a college trip to Africa, and I was raised in Hawaii, where we see a lot of foreigners”? Somehow picking Biden — who has been wrong on pretty much every foreign policy question he has an opinion on — bolstered that. That, and saying “JFK’s meeting with Kruschev led to the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile crisis, let’s follow that example in diplomatic relations.” Strangely the media thinks it a good example to follow as well.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
In response to your last statement (about how anyone could watch her interviews and be OK with her as president), I can’t speak for all of her supporters but I can say what was going through my mind. I’m willing to shrug off some of her interview performance because of the other research I’ve done on her. Whenever I see a TV image of a public figure and that image conflicts with hard data that I have about the person’s past, in making up my mind what to think about that person, I give much more weight to their public record than I give to their TV image. In my mind, past performance is a more reliable predictor of future performance than is a 60-minute TV spot with a Katie Couric; even if the person comes across as a total nincompoop on TV, if they have a very solid record of successful public service that flies in the face of that image, I’ll go with that. I’m not willing to erase a number of years of successful leadership because a person doesn’t present well on TV for an hour or two.
Likewise, if a person presents well on TV but has a consistent record of poor leadership, or has no record of it at all, or if they have a record that consistently conflicts with the message that they communicate with their excellent TV presence, I tend to ignore the TV presence and go with the hard data. This is why I voted the way I voted in this election.
As far as Joe Biden goes, while he has a great deal of experience in foreign relations as a legislator, I find his experience to be a bit patchy and inconsistent. I don’t care about his occasional gaffes; we all know he has foot-in-mouth syndrome bad. But his record on foreign relations has him making some calls that are just downright batty, and he has been consistently on what I believe is the wrong end of many of the major foreign relations policy decisions of our time.
So for me, the question was do I take a VP Palin, who seems to have a record as an excellent leader who surrounds herself with smart people and learns very quickly and has made a lot of smart, common sense decisions in the areas she excels in; or do I take Joe Biden, who has extensive experience but seems to be very stubborn about certain things, and has made what I think are consistently bad decisions about foreign policy during his time as a Senator.
I wasn’t looking at Palin by herself, I was looking at her *relative* the other option. If I got to pick a person to do the job out of anyone in the country it would have been neither of the two, but I had to pick, one or the other.
It comes down, largely, to one’s opinions about how the candidates have handled themselves. I don’t believe that Joe Biden’s experience makes him a better leader by itself; for experience to improve a person, they have to learn lessons from past mistakes. I don’t think he’s done that very well. That’s my personal assessment and opinion, and from that point of reference, Palin doesn’t look so bad.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Max,
First, the issue to me is not if Palin’s X = Biden’s Y or Obama’s Q, as I don’t except the notion the X=Y=Q–one has to deal with each of these issue separately
Second, you wrote:
I never gave any credence to the baby situation, and I don’t think I ever actually wrote about. What other “outrageous” things have I used?
Still, in re: Obama–regardless of anything else one might say about the man, the notion that he hasn’t given the issues of the day some serious thought is ludicrous. I can accept the notion that you don’t think that he is qualified, but you cannot credibly tell me that he hasn’t thought about both domestic and foreign policy issues of the day.
There is clear, empirical evidence that he has: interviews on the record, two books, a Senate campaign, a Presidential campaign, the time teaching law school, etc.
There is no such list for Palin. I fully believe that she is versed in issues relevant to Alaska. Beyond that, there simply is not evidence. Maybe she hid it well, but you have nothing to support your position save for supposition. Palin herself stated in an interview that she hadn’t had time to follow the Iraq war aside from whatever she caught on TV.
McCain made a poor choice. Why is that so hard to admit?
November 7th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Oh, and in regards to this:
You are entitled to whatever feeling or guess you would like (and I say that with no snark or sarcasm). However, you have to admit that that is thin gruel upon which to base, let alone win, an argument.
Beyond that, I have (as I am sure you have) been watching politics for some time. I have never seen a VP candidate so unprepared for the press. Yes, VP candidates are constrained by their supporting role, but that does not explain Palin’s lack of ability to speak cogently about basic issues.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I’m with Dr. Taylor in that I think it’s pretty silly to say that Obama hasn’t given serious thought to the issues. The problem for me is that his thought has taken him to places that I am sure I disagree with. At least with Palin, I don’t know what I’m getting. That is preferable to me than what I know I’m going to get from Obama.
Still, I had hoped that with the election settled, we could rid ourselves of these comparisons, as they are no longer relevant to anything; Palin vs. Biden vs. McCain vs. Obama no longer has any use; for good or ill we elected Obama/Biden, and so McCain/Palin are really only relevant in that for now McCain is still a senator, and Palin is still a governor. So if we’re talking about the senate or the Alaskan goverment, well and good, but beyond that what’s the point?
Really, I think it’s a sad state that all we have are two choices for 4 people. The process should be more accepting of alternatives to the GOP and the Dem parties.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
I can wholly understand someone voting for McCain-Palin. I can wholly understand preferring McCain to Obama. I can understand discounting, if not ignoring, Palin’s shortcomings since she was the #2 on the ticket.
What I honestly have a hard time with is any defense of her as actually ready to be president of the United States. I just don’t see any actual evidence to support that position.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I can agree with that statement - that there is no evidence that she is ready to be president. If we’re looking only at the empirical, I can accept that position as not only valid but a very strong position, maybe an unassailable position. Her popularity, I think, shows that the empirical is not always the first thing on the electorate’s mind. Charisma goes a long way in our politics - not long enough when your opponent is a bit more qualified in ways that are empirically measurable - but it goes a long way. I still think that were it not for the Palin pick (if McCain had gone with Romney or Pawlenty) that the election would have gone even worse for him, and he might not have ever pulled ahead in the polls at all.
I do think that the GOP needs to figure out a way to legitimize Sarah Palin with the public. And by “legitimize” I mean that I was wrong about a lot of things about Sarah Palin. She needs to be exposed to national politics. She needs to expand her sphere of knowledge and concern beyond energy policy, which is about the only area she has any real credibility that matters to the centrists and swing voters who decide elections; it’s already established that she’s a pro-life, social conservative. What the she needs is some federal political experience that will expand her knowledge of federal issues, and also perhaps tone her social conservative-ness down a little bit. She has the charisma and the TV presence to be a truly formidable figure in politics, perhaps even a defining figure. The problems with her as she is right now are twofold: she lacks experience with federal concerns, and she is a highly polarizing figure.
The latter can be overcome. Barack Obama proved that. I would argue that he is a polarizing figure as well, or that he was before the election started; a very successful campaign was able to re-define him as a very generic “agent of change”, and by generic I mean that his campaign was able to cast him as the anti-Bush, as well as the solution to everyone’s problem: whether you’re worried about melting icecaps, a melting economy, or the war in Iraq, Obama has an answer. Not everyone accepted the answer - indeed, I would hardly call his victory a landslide, with so many states winning by single-digit margins; but it seemed pretty clear to me that Obama as a polar leftist sort of got lost during the campaign, even though his record speaks volumes to him being that. I think his victory showed that, if you run your campaign well, you can be a polarizing figure and still come out ahead. I think he needed to be a polar leftist to get through his party’s primary; he then re-defined himself, quite successfully, and won.
So really what Palin needs if she is to become a national political figure is to enter the arena of Washington politics in some way. I think the folks who want her to run in 2012 need to take a reality pill and realize that the only way she would be a viable candidate then would be if she somehow entered the national arena and gathered up some credibility between now and then.
If that happened - I do believe she would be a powerful figure to contend with.
I’ve heard the idea floated that she might appoint herself in Ted Steven’s job should he be ejected from the Senate. I’m not sure how such a move would be received; certainly if she was a successful senator for four years (if she was successful being the key phrase) and managed to wiggle her way onto some relevant committees - foreign relations would be especially helpful - it would be very difficult to assail her on the basis of experience, as she would have both executive (as a governor and mayor) and legislative (as a councilperson and senator) experience, all scattered across the spectrum of federalism (local, state, and federal experience). Her record would come under intense scrutiny, but again, if that time proved formative and productive and she learned enough in that time (which I don’t see as implausible - Obama seemed to pick things up pretty fast, being in the Senate only 2 years) I think she would be a real threat in 2012, especially if the economy is still floundering.
Indeed, if the economy does not improve, and improve enormously by 2012, Obama will be in serious trouble. And if it hasn’t improved at all, or if it is worse than it is now, it will be impossible for him to achieve re-election. He absolutely, positively, MUST figure out a way to work a miracle with the economy or he’s gonna be a one-termer.
If Palin and her peeps are serious about running her, they should really think about how they’re going to get her in the national spotlight and get her fully educated on what it means to be there. I think this is possible in four or eight years - very possible. But it would take very deliberate maneuvering to accomplish it.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Yes–she clearly needs to enhance her resume and her knowledge base if she wants to run in 2012. Ted Stevens’ Senate seat, perhaps?
My guess, btw, is that if she does run in 2012 and is actually in a competition with other Republicans rather than with Democrats, many of the Reps who currently now adore her will find that she isn’t as good a candidate as they thought she was. Competing with other pro-life social conservatives will expose many of her flaws to them in ways that that they were blind to in the midst of a race against Democrats.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Dr. Taylor -
Let me play the foil to your position. It is your opinion that her thinking has been confined to Alaska and issues that impact that state. But isn’t that exactly what the voters of Alaska elected her to do? Is it not fair to argue that her focus was exactly where it should have been to discharge her duties to the office that she held and continues to hold? Were she to have been focused on foreign policy issues she would have done a disservice to the residents of her State.
An individual who discharges his/her duties with vigor and determination will educate himself/herself on the duties and responsibilities of a new office.
You argue that it is clear that Pres-elect Obama has thought more about these issues, and I will not dispute that assertion. Yet, as the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on European Affairs, he neither held any policy hearings nor traveled to Europe (other than in his role a candidate). In this sense he had a affirmative duty to the Senate and to the nation to be knowledgeable on Europe and to help craft and support legislation that would affect policy in that region, and he did not use the authority he had to perform that duty. This concerns me equally, if not more, that when he had responsibilities he did not fulfill them. It makes me wonder if he is really taking into account the facts as they change, or whether he has made up his mind, and the facts will not change that.
Time in the office will necessarily reveal more about him, so we will see. I must admit, however, that seeing Gov. Granholm of Michigan among his group of economic advisors today did not inspire confidence with respect to his judgment or the policies he is considering.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
One more thing -
She needs to learn how to interview. She needs to realize that, with the exception of Fox News, the media will do its best to paint the democrat in a positive light and the republican in a negative; and she needs to learn how to get through an interview without falling into their traps.
Yeah, I know, shame on me for believing that there is a liberal bias in the newsmedia, but I really believe it’s there. And for a republican to be successful they need to know how to deal with that bias; simply calling it for what it is doesn’t work, as they did that throughout the McCain campaign.
There may come a day when the population is so jaded with the media that a republican politician can just ignore most of them and get away with it. We’re not there yet; that is abundantly clear to me after this election. So it follows that a republican candidate needs to know how to deal with a hostile media.
Palin scored an F-minus on media relations. That won’t fly if she wants to run for anything outside of Alaska as a republican.
November 7th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
ts -
I don’t think anyone can seriously argue that Palin has not excelled at everything she has done so far. She was a great mayor and a great governor. If there was any dirt to be found, the people sent to Alaska to dig it up would have found it. I don’t think Dr. Taylor is arguing that she didn’t do her duties as a governor; he is arguing that doing your duties as a governor does not provide empirical evidence of fitness for the Oval Office.
She has a real record of “blooming where planted.” One could theorize, based on that, that she would become a good president if there was a need. I think that it’s a sound and reasonable theory, but we can’t really prop it up with anything. Even those of us who like her and think she has great potential have to concede that we can’t prop our theory that she would be a good president up with anything concrete. Hatchet jobs they might have been, but she flunked her interviews, and while I thought she performed well in the VP debate, it wasn’t a knockout punch; it was a close match won by decision.
I personally think you’re right about Obama. He spent more of his time as a senator planning to become president than he did actually doing his duties. I’ve been through the senate floor records for the last couple of years. Every page. His absence from most of the important debates is frightfully conspicuous, and it is one reason I worried about the guy - it appeared to me that he viewed his seat in the senate as a stepping stone, and treated it that way. And when he did speak up on the floor, it was without the articulate and confident wording that he has had since becoming a presidential candidate. If I were to look at the words he spoke on the campaign trail and the words he spoke on the senate floor without knowing any better I would guess them to be from different people.
In any case - I think what I’ve finally come to agree with Dr. Taylor on is that Obama did go out and prepare himself for the national spotlight. Palin didn’t. We can get into a debate about whether or not Obama should have taken his senatorial duties more seriously if we want to, but it’s sort of a separate issue, one of duty and ethics and there is a lot of wiggle room for people to have differing opinions on that; but that he did preparet is not in question, and it should be quite obvious that Palin did not.
The consequences speak for themselves.
November 7th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I never argued that she was unqualified to be governor of Alaska, just unqualified and unprepared to be President.
In re: Obama, let’s put it this way, he went through a two year job interview and was able to seal the deal with those with the power to hire him. That may not satisfy those who think him underqualified, but at this point that issue is moot. I personally think he demonstrated enough skill, knowledge and evidence of forethought on the right issues.
And btw, let’s stipulate for the sake of argument that media has a decided liberal bias and that they will do their best to make the Reps look bad. However, even given that, I have seen any number of Reps give really good interviews over the years. I have rarely, indeed perhaps never, seen anything like what Palin did. The evidence simply doesn’t stack up, just based on what other Reps have done in interviews with the liberal media, that the main or even best explanation for Palin’s poor performance was media bias.
November 7th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I’m not looking at the MSM as the primary cause of the failure of the McCain/Palin ticket, or as the primary cause of Palin’s poor interview performance. I’m looking at it as an exacerbating cause; it made worse problems that she already had, and took into the interview room with her.
I don’t feel like I made a statement to the contrary of what you just said. I simply said that navigating the bias of the media was *one* of Palin’s problems. The others I cited were a lack of knowledge and experience dealing with federal matters, and her extreme social conservative-ness.
I did not mean to elevate the media bias over her other faults. In fact I mentioned the other problems first, and only added the problem of media bias as an afterward. I think it exacerbated what was already a problem. Republicans can give good interviews in spite of bias. Palin doesn’t know how to do that, but even if she did, she would not have interviewed well because she lacked the fundamental knowledge of federal issues that she needed. My argument isn’t an either or, it’s that a republican candidate needs BOTH of those things to give a good interview; Palin had neither. I’m agreeing with you, really, just with the caveat that there is another shortfall that she has, and that is dealing with the liberal media bias - that on top of what you said.
You know, I like to feed sharks. But I know better than to jump into chummed water without chainmail, holding a piece of tuna in each hand. If you’re going to feed the sharks you have to armor up; you have to prepare; you should put the food out on a pole and let the shark take the food at a distance.
Being a republican and dealing with the MSM is like feeding sharks. It’s absolutely possible to do it without getting hurt, but you need to be armed with adequate knowledge, have the proper tools, and understand the behavior of the animal in question, as each species postures and responds differently to different simuli. The level and type of bias in the media is varied. The only thing consistent about it is that it is pro-democrat and anti-republican.
Palin jumped into the chum without so much as a life preserver, and she was eaten alive. The failure of the McCain/Palin ticket cannot be blamed on the MSM, and that’s not what I’m trying to do; I’m just saying they play hardball on republicans and softball on democrats, generally speaking, and that’s just a fact of life. Palin failed miserably at dealing with that bias, ON TOP of her other shortfalls. I am looking at the bias as an exacerbating ccondition, not an underlying cause.
November 10th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
What I was referring to was this post’s referece to Africa and NAFTA, and the fact that in the comments you mentioned you believe that Palin is aware Africa is a continent and that Palin knows which countries are in NAFTA. However, re-reading the post, you say:
I had overlooked the “The report also confirms” and had read that as “this report of these two things — which I don’t necessarily believe — shows that Palin was not vetted properly.”
I would still argue that this report of anonymous statements really only shows that the McCain campaign included some number of childish and petty staffers who thought they could make a quick buck by telling obviously false stories to the media. You yourself mentioned that you don’t believe the two stories referenced in the original post regarding Africa and NAFTA. I have a feeling that the statements in question were slips of the tongue similar to Obama’s 57 states comment. And, yes, I know Obama knows how many states there are. Also, I know Obama has apparently thought about foreign affairs although I would not concede that he had clearly thought about them before running for office ( http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2007/08/audacity-of-idiocy.html although that is based on anonymous sources as well; and no I’m not commenting on the commentary, just the point that if Obama truly said “we will not do X in any circumstances; wait, scratch that, everything’s still on the table” it would imply that he hadn’t yet thought much about doing X).
November 10th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
You are correct: the video proves nothing and I will admit that I find it at least plausible that Palin conflated Africa into a country and find it likewise possible that she didn’t know the NAFTA countries. Given the Jerome Corsi once wrote a column in which he didn’t know the NAFTA countries and the Human Events online editors didn’t notice makes this all seem quite plausible. (See here)
Beyond that, here public displays of knowledge haven’t been too impressive.
Still, you are right that the report proves nothing except that there is a great deal of backbiting and finger pointing in the wake of the McCain loss.
While I find the report plausible, it is not the best bit of evidence for my position on Palin, not by a longshot. Still, I stand by my basic conclusions.