Last week I stated with utter certainty that, given the horrible week the Republican ticket had over at the CBS network, McCain and Palin would surely never take another question from Katie Couric. I was wrong. Over the weekend, Sarah Palin took a question from a voter on the subject of Pakistan, gave the wrong answer (she sounded more like Barack Obama than John McCain), and it landed both her and McCain back in the studio with Katie Couric.
McCain has been pounding Barack Obama for publicly stating his willingness to launch a surgical strike – without the sign off from the Pakistani government – against high value Al Qaida targets operating in Pakistan if he gets actionable intelligence. Pakistan is an incredibly difficult nut to crack. The more we cozy up to its government, the more the people seem to hate us. And yet, it is the government that (we hope) maintains control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. But the new Pakistani President, Ali Azif Zardari, has no more popular mandate to maintain his government’s stability, nor any more handle on extremist groups in the mountainous region bordering Afghanistan, than did Musharraf. So the place is a tinderbox. Maybe refraining from endorsing particular tactics is a good idea, but if the roles were reversed, and it was Obama who thought we should hold our cards closer to our vest, and it was McCain giving voters the kind of tough talk they clamor for, you can be sure that McCain would be bludgeoning Obama with his pansy tactical secrecy bit. Recall, from Friday night’s debate:
“He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan,” McCain said of Obama. “Now, you don’t do that. You don’t say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.”
“And I guarantee you I would not publicly state that I’m going to attack them,” McCain added.
Obama responded that “nobody talked about attacking Pakistan,” saying his speech last year on Pakistan endorsed the idea that “if the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out.”
“This is not an easy situation. You’ve got cross-border attacks against U.S. troops,” Obama added. “And we’ve got a choice. We could allow our troops to just be on the defensive and absorb those blows again and again and again, if Pakistan is unwilling to cooperate, or we have to start making some decisions.”
So, at an unscheduled stop in Philadelphia (for cheesesteaks of course) over the weekend, a customer in the shop asked Palin about how to deal with attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan by terrorists operating in Pakistan. He asked her whether she would support cross border raids into Pakistan, and she said: “If that’s what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should.”
When McCain and Palin returned to CBS last night, Katie Couric asked both of them about Governor Palin’s response to that voter, as it seemed to contradict McCain’s insistence on not talking about such tactics in public.
COURIC: Is that something you shouldn’t say out loud, Sen. McCain?
McCAIN: Of course not. But, look, I understand this day and age “gotcha” journalism. Is that a pizza place? In a conversation with someone who you didn’t hear … the question very well, you don’t know the context of the conversation. Grab a phrase. Gov. Palin and I agree that you don’t announce that you’re going to attack another country.
COURIC: Are you sorry you said it …
McCAIN: …And the fact …
COURIC: Governor?
McCAIN: Wait a minute. Before you say, “is she sorry she said it,” this was a “gotcha” sound bite that, look …
COURIC: It wasn’t a “gotcha.” She was talking to a voter.
McCAIN: No, she was in a conversation with a group of people and talking back and forth.
What is remarkable about this clip is not the substance of the discussion. It’s the fact that John McCain willingly sat with Sarah Palin for a Katie Couric rematch. Why in God’s name would they do that? The interview manages to make Palin look even more infantile – for bringing her dad with her to the interview – than she already does. McCain goes so far as to even answer the question for Palin, whose body language throughout the exchange was very telling. The back and forth really makes McCain look like a hair-splitting grumpy old man who now equates a voter asking a question of his vice president with the media playing “gotcha” journalism. Smells a lot more like gotcha politics to me.
Want more? The internet is buzzing in anticipation for the other footage CBS has ready to release this week – Q and As with Sarah Palin and then also with Joe Biden.
Inform Your Consent 
endithinks said
McCain is trying to “protect” her. If she is going to ve Vice President she needs to be able to defend herself. McCain is weakening the ticket by continually shielding her from media exposure and stealing her confidance.
McCain was condescending and looked like granpa protecting his little granddaughter from the big meanies on the playground.