Sarah Palin’s disastrous interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric proved Campbell Brown quite wrong. McCain isn’t shielding Palin from press scrutiny because she is a woman; he is shielding her from press scrutiny because she handles it no better than he does. Clive Crook at the Financial Times had this to say:
Was this the same Palin who gave the convention speech – or even the less-than-stunning Palin of the Charles Gibson interview? She was simply awful. In response to straightforward questions, she was scared, rambling, incoherent, and at times completely unintelligible. She looked stupid. She gave her critics everything they could have wished.
The two part interview revealed several points of weakness:
1. Palin had no answer to Couric’s questions about revelations that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis’ firm (in which he continues to hold an interest, pointed out Couric) has continued to receive $15,000/month payments from Freddie Mac until last month. When Couric pressed on whether Davis’ interest in the firm isn’t a clear conflict of interest, Palin was literally at a loss for words.
2. When asked by Couric for a specific example of how John McCain had pushed for more adequate regulation of Wall Street, Palin stumbled, and when Couric pressed the point for a third time, Palin had to admit she couldn’t think of an example, but would “try to find one and bring it to ya.”
3. Couric gave the governor another shot to frame her foreign policy credentials vis a vis Russia. Palin was wobbly, trying to finish out a sentence describing a maritime border with Russia and wandered into talking about the land border with Canada. As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do you think they go?” And it gets worse, you can view it below, in part two of the interview.
4. Couric asked Palin her opinion about the bailout package under negotiation in Congress this week, and whether the country could face another Great Depression if something isn’t passed. Rather than sounding a reassuring and confident note, Palin took the bait, and said that yes, we could be headed for one. Worse, though is that she was completely incoherent – despite repeatedly looking down toward, presumably, her notes, when defining why a bailout needs to be passed. I would paste the text here but CBS didn’t provide it; you have to watch the clip. Her answer begins at 2:20 minutes in the Part II interview. Then between 4:00 and 4:45 minutes she seems unable to decide whether homebuyers should bear any responsbility for home foreclosures.
5. Katie Couric asked Palin about when U.S. efforts to promote democracy backfire, such as when Hamas won control of the Palestinian government several years ago. Palin did not seem to understand the question, and just rambled on about how important it is to promote those who seek democracy. Not surprisingly, her diplomatic approach to Israel and Iran comes down to not secondguessing “the good guys” in “their fight” against “the bad guys.” Time to take cover, folks.
5. Palin’s fumbles on the economic crisis led John McCain to skip a taping with David Letterman and sit down with Katie Couric, in which he avoided referring to a Great Depression but rather warned of consequences “of the utmost seriousness” if action is not taken. Then, David Letterman skewered McCain for begging off the show to rush back to Washington, and showed live tape of McCain getting powdered for the Couric interview.
I think it’s clear that even if John McCain and Sarah Palin take any more questions from the press over the next forty days, they surely won’t take any more of them from Katie Couric.
But wait- I left out one other important video that the unholy media dug up this week. A visiting pastor visits Palin’s church (during her gubernatorial campaign) and prays against witchcraft, and for, among other things, that God should take over the media, our schools, the financial system, our government and politics. He prays for her success, and that church members will involve themselves in her campaign.
Inform Your Consent 