Muzzling the moose hunter
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Not ready |
Last night, Sarah Palin contradicted John McCain’s position on Pakistan, the one he’s flogged so relentlessly against Barack Obama:
“So we do cross border, like from Afghanistan to Pakistan you think?” …
“If that’s what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should…” [CNN]
Today McCain was forced to disavow her statement:
“She would not…she understands and has stated repeatedly that we’re not going to do anything except in America’s national security interest… people going around and… sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that’s–that’s a person’s position… This is a free country, but I don’t think most Americans think that that’s a definitive policy statement…” [CNN]
Of course not. Why would you think a politician answering a policy question would be making a policy statement? According to McCain, here’s when his running mate’s statements should be disregarded — when her lips are moving.
Most campaigns go from vetting to election to gaffe to -gate. Like Benjamin Button, Palin’s campaign is doing it in reverse.
Selecting Palin was a campaign stunt. What it’s turned into is a national joke. The Biden-Palin debate next Thursday will be a circus unless Palin withdraws. As Fareed Zakaria writes:
[She's] stayed in purdah for weeks… the more Palin talks, the more we see that it may not be sexism but common sense that’s causing the McCain campaign to treat her like a time bomb… Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? [Newswk]
Pronouns wander in search of antecedents like Arctic explorers in a blinding snowstorm… The whole thing reads like something rendered from the Finnish by Google Translate. [NYorker]
A number of commentators… have said that Palin resembled… “a high-schooler trying to BS her way through a book report,” which is an insult to both high-schoolers and B.S. [Time]
“You needed the Jaws of Life to pry a coherent sentence out,” moaned one Republican operative. [NYDN]
What’s sad is McCain just slapped Palin down for the one sensible thing she’s said all week. Even Dubya has finally come around to taking more aggressive action against the Taliban. Palin was merely following the GOP’s Manichæan rhetoric to its logical conclusion.
on Sunday, September 28th, 2008, 1:16 pm in Politics, Sarah Palin › 
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I think McCain is going to have Sarah Palin gored to death by a moose. That way, he can throw that Hail Mary he desperately needs: get rid of Sarah Palin, and garner the sympathy vote at the same time. And then, maybe the conservatives will let him pick Lieberman. Or Romney will look wonderful in comparison.
Till a few weeks ago, I thought Arnold Schwarzenegger was a better fit for VP (he’s a red governor of a blue state). The big reason for him not being picked was probably his immigrant status (a ceiling that he’s finding hard to break, since his wife wants him to be the President someday). But, Arnie has goofed a lot with the California budget, and his ratings are way down of late.
According to the twelfth amendment, he VP needs to meet all the eligibility criteria for the President, and hence naturalized citizens cannot be Veep.
> According to the twelfth amendment, he VP needs to meet all the eligibility criteria for the President, and hence naturalized citizens cannot be Veep.
Yup, coz we all know that a naturalized citizen wont respect all that this country stands for, compared to a regular citizen who takes it for granted.
hey, i am neither making nor arguing that point. just that there are more fundamental things than approval ratings that prevent mccain from picking arnold. and an amendment requires three quarters of states (or maybe it’s two third) of the states to approve, which is an impossibly high number, so a change in this amendment isn’t happening anytime soon.
I pity Palin, but it’s her own fault the press is playing the “gotcha game.” Her refusal to answer questions on her record and governing philosophy is ridiculous. I’ve lost a lot of respect for John McCain for choosing such obviously ill-prepared person as 2nd in line.
The VP debate is going to be rich.
Why the GOP didn’t choose Olympia Snowe over Palin is beyond me.
Why are we assuming that average Joe is going to take the trouble of parsing SP’s gibberish?
Here rabble rousing hooks are still in deep.
McCain could have picked Jindal and gotten another young, fresh wingnut. He could’ve picked Huckabee and gotten a wingnut who’s a smooth talker. Either would’ve juiced the base.
With Palin, he won the news cycle for 14 days and torpedoed his own campaign. Remember, this is the guy who cusses out Senate colleagues. He loves to gamble at craps, not a game for a rational gambler– they choose games of skill like poker or games where the odds can be improved by counting cards, like blackjack. He’s a former fighter pilot. He’s plunged his own campaign into pointless drama.
It’s all of a piece. This is a guy so focused on short-term tactics, he can’t see beyond 14 days out. He’s got the mentality of a high-class drug addict. Dangerous in a president.
“The VP debate is going to be rich.”
The SNL skit will be more.
Shankar Vedantam of the Washington Post thinks she wins simply by showing up:
Neither is a woman, though. Small detail. Who could he have picked that had the same profile but wasn’t her? Nobody, that’s why he picked her.
Over the weekend, I checked out some of her other clips on youtube. I now think both the Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric interview reflect over-coaching by her new McCain campaign handlers. She’s not been allowed to be herself. BTW, she was on Charlie Rose back in November 2007, check that out for her being herself. (To my horror, I found that Kristol said the same thing in his column today - the second time I’m reading him since circa 2001, again, after I came to this ‘overcoaching’ conclusion. She’s not Harvard Law Review, but she can speak complete sentences in English and make sense.)
I don’t know how many people have heard and watched themselves talk near-extempore, in clips, after the fact. I have, and clips generally make you look worse. Leaving the whole video in is better, but it’s not like being there in person. Unfortunately, TV always edits you. And BTW, Zakaria should watch himself sometime, reduced to clips.
Irrelevant. He’s not going to get much Hillary spillover.
Being able to recite the day’s script is a prerequisite for being a modern Republican.
Zakaria sounds like Einstein in comparison. But he sounds like Einstein w.r.t. a man off the street too.