Katie Couric Discusses Sarah Palin Interviews

On David Letterman Wednesday night:



"Clearly, she was struggling with some of those answers."

In What Respect, Charlie?

The Improper

NYTimes: Growing Doubts on Palin Take a Toll, Poll Finds

A growing number of voters have concluded that Senator John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is not qualified to be vice president, weighing down the Republican ticket in the last days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

All told, 59 percent of voters surveyed said Ms. Palin was not prepared for the job, up nine percentage points since the beginning of the month. Nearly a third of voters polled said the vice-presidential selection would be a major factor influencing their vote for president, and those voters broadly favor Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.

And in a possible indication that the choice of Ms. Palin has hurt Mr. McCain’s image, voters said they had much more confidence in Mr. Obama to pick qualified people for his administration than they did in Mr. McCain.

The more she speaks, the more we realize how little she knows.

I really liked her energy speech at a solar plant yesterday where she said "Drill, baby, drill." At a solar plant. Genius!

Anonymous McCain Aide Said It First

ThinkProgress

New Obama Ad: "His Choice"

Devastating. Palin's a winker and McCain's a fool for choosing her.

Tee Hee

McCain aide calls Palin a "whack job".

I've been calling her that for weeks!

Former McCain Adviser Charles Fried: Sarah Palin Is "Ignorant and Inexperienced"

Charles Fried, Ronald Reagan's Solicitor General, former Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, current Harvard Law Professor and, until this week, McCain adviser.

More on Charles Fried's endorsement of Barack Obama by the conservative legal scholar and former McCain advisor. It's all about Palin.

HuffPo: Conservative Legal Icon Charles Fried Elaborates on His Obama Endorsement

In a letter to the McCain campaign, he asked that his name be removed from their legal advisory committee, explaining that the key reason "is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."

I asked Professor Fried to elaborate on what, if anything, this says about Obama and abortion. He responded to me with this email:

"There are many issues facing the country that are more important than what the President says or believes about abortion. I suspect that there are a great many things that Obama believes and will do with which I will disagree -- starting with his judicial nominees, but in a time of economic and foreign policy crisis I found the risk of promoting to the presidency a person as ignorant and inexperienced as Sarah Palin -- natural political talent though she is -- unacceptable."

There's not enough lipstick in the world to cover up vast ignorance and inexperience.

Are You A Better Reporter Than a Fifth Grader?

I doubt it! Watch this report on a Palm Beach, Florida Joe Biden rally by fifth-grader Damon Weaver. And Biden manages to tell him what the Vice President really does (he doesn't "run the Senate", Sarah).

Sarah Palin Is Stupid

I mean, really, really stupid. Shouldn't you know at least a little about what the job you're running for entails? Watch this fool:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me!.... [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.

From ThinkProgress:

Article I of the Constitution establishes an exceptionally limited role for the Vice President — giving the office holder a vote only when the Senate is “equally divided”:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

Moreover, the U.S. Senate website explains that the modern role of Vice Presidents has been to preside over the Senate “only on ceremonial occasions.” ThinkProgress contacted Senior Assistant Paliamentarian Peter Robinson, who also disputed Palin’s characterization of the Vice President’s role:

In modern practice the Vice President doesn’t really control the Senate. … If anyone has a responsibility to try to govern the Senate, it’s the responsibility of the two leaders

.

If someone came in to interview for a paralegal job, and told me she was looking forward to filling in for me in court, I'd smile at her and show her the door. Hopefully America will do the same with Stupid Palin.

Sarah Palin in 30 Seconds

Sarah Palin is George W. Bush in Lipstick Part 2

Just listen to her pronounce "nuclear":

Vice Presidential Debate on Saturday Night Live

Tina Fey once again skewers Sarah Palin on last night's Saturday Night Live. Bonus appearance by Queen Latifah as Gwen Ifill.

Q: How would you solve the financial crisis, being a maverick?

A: You know we're gonna take every aspect of the crisis and look at it, and then we're gonna ask ourselves, what would a maverick do in this situation? And then you know, we'll do that.

New Palin Interview With Marge From Fargo

Funny.

The McCain Campaign's Fatal Mistake

Pissing off David Letterman was a very, very stupid thing to do.

Some special messages from Sarah Palin:


Top 10 Messages on Sarah Palin's Answering Machine:


Bwahahaha.

No Comment

yahoo: Republican vice presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin winks as she speaks during her vice presidential debate against Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Free Us From Health Insurance In Our Old Age

Larry DeWitt: Figure 2: Cover of AMA record album, author’s copy

The record the American Medical Association produced for its "Ladies Auxiliary Association" grass roots campaign to kill Medicare - 1961.

Jonathan Chait, The New Republic: Palin Channels Reagan

Palin's final quote was from Ronald Reagan, warning that without vigilance, "you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."

In fact, Reagan was not warning about a general lack of vigilance about freedom, he was warning what would happen if Medicare was enacted.

Really, if you have a little time, read the entire Larry DeWitt piece. The right has always used folksy spokespeople -- like Sarah Palin -- to kill progressive legislation that would benefit actual folks.

Don't get fooled again.

Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink

Watched the debate tonight. Biden was great. The best I have ever seen him. I wish whoever prepped him for this debate had prepped him for the hearings on the last few Supreme Court nominations. He could have beaten Roberts & Scalito if he had been this focused and on-message.

Palin didn't have any horrible gaffes, but she was so weird. The cutesiness really puts me off. You're running for Vice President, not prom queen, for crying out loud. (I think this is why she does better with men than with women.) My mom called me after five minutes and said she just couldn't watch her any more. How can anyone take her seriously?

Jed Lewison notices the weird winking:



It was so obvious that she was just stringing together her talking points. She avoided several questions by giving answers about lowering taxes.

Biden's best moment for me was when he stated, then stated again, that what the US spends for three weeks of the Iraq War is the TOTAL of what we have spent on Afghanistan in the past seven years. While I think sending more troops to Afghanistan is insane, I think it is important to point out how far off track Bush & McCain sent the US after the 9/11 attacks, and how much money we are wasting on Bush/McCain's war of choice.

The worst moment for Palin for me was when Biden choked up talking about losing his first wife and daughter. It was the most emotional moment of the debate. And she stood there and listened to that and ignored it, went right back to her canned chirpy bullshit. A man had just stood next to her and relived a devastating loss -- his wife died, his daughter died, his two boys are near death in the hospital -- and she did not react. She did not care. To me that proved that she wasn't really there. She was reading her notes and reciting her canned answers, but she didn't even hear what Biden said. That was cold and uncaring. It made it pretty clear that Palin caring about Biden's son going to Iraq was a talking point. She didn't give a shit.

The post-debate polls are pretty uniform in giving the edge to Biden.

Fairytales

Rolling Stone: Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

McCAIN FIRST

This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

Be sure to read the two other essays Rolling Stone has on Old Spice/Bible Spice '08:

The Double-Talk Express
From tax cuts to torture, John McCain has flip-flopped on a host of issues - including his own immigration bill

Mad Dog Palin
The scariest thing about John McCain's running mate isn't how unqualified she is - it's what her candidacy says about America

Debate Prep

For your debate prep, I assign you to watch this "Sarah Palin Greatest Hits" tape:



In what respect, Charlie?

Feel the Gibberish

Reality check: Sarah Palin preparing for the debate, with foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann playing the role of Senator Biden, at the McCain ranch in Arizona. Photo: AP

Can't wait for the debate tonight? Generate your own Sarah Palin gibberish answers to questions here:

InterviewPalin.com

Jack Cafferty Skewers Palin -- Again

Jack has a title for Palin's post-election book:

"How I Committed Suicide on the CBS Evening News"